Chamber and committees

We have had several gateway reviews of the project. One is under way this week, and we will receive the results from it imminently.

The gateway review teams usually speak with 12 to 15 interviewees, including relevant commercial and external stakeholders such as prime contractors and consultants—the people who are actually doing the work. They will give their assessment and then we will find out exactly how they think we are getting on.

That is right. It is obliged under statute to return that level of recycling. As far as the black spots for collections and such are concerned, CSL needs to put in place a comprehensive network of return points to allow it to hit the target, because, as an organisation, it can be penalised if it does not meet its statutory obligations.

That is correct.

We will have to wait and see what the gateway review comes up with. For example, previous reviews have given us a steer towards streamlining the exemption process. That was a bit of advice that came to us straight out of a gateway review, which we were then able to implement along with our guidance. Such reviews are constructive and detailed in saying where we have challenges, what is going well and what we can work on. That enables us to take points away, which, as I said, we have done following previous reviews. We all look forward to seeing the results of the review, and we hope that the panel will have constructive input for us.

Absolutely. On the second point, regional land use partnerships and the national parks incorporate that approach of having different land managers under different business and ownership models working together on nature restoration and land management. The best example of that is the globally recognised Cairngorms Connect, which covers a mix of public and private land and involves people working together to achieve regeneration in the national park.

The member is right that land reform is part of the toolkit for addressing ownership patterns, which is part of the Scottish Government’s policy. Some good work is being done, as we move towards our land reform bill, on how it can work for nature. I went with Ms McAllan on her road show on the land reform bill, so I got to hear from stakeholders at first hand about land reform and about their hopes and dreams in supporting biodiversity. The purpose of the land reform bill is to help land go into community ownership where there is a public interest, particularly where it is for the common good and the benefit of nature.

The key aspect is the land management plans, which I hope we can use as a tool to ensure that land is managed well. Biodiversity is absolutely intended to be part of that, so that we can help to move the dial toward responsible land ownership around the country. There are already some really good examples of that.

As Liam Kerr knows, implementing that commitment to a 50 per cent shift and the conditionality around it is on-going work in agricultural reform. I believe that the cabinet secretary made an initial announcement on the direction of travel a couple of weeks ago to the national annual meeting of the NFUS. However, it is a matter of on-going consultation with stakeholders to make sure that we get it right.

The number 1 priority is to make sure that that 50 per cent is not only delivering for biodiversity but is practical, workable and accessible for farmers and land managers, so that they can get that money in a way that supports their business models.

What I said we are doing—

That was a really interesting aspect of the Edinburgh process. Members might recall that, during the 26th UN climate change conference of the parties—COP26—subnational actors such as Scotland, some American states and some European regions were frustrated that members of the United Nations might not have been as ambitious as subnational actors wanted them to be. The same concern was expressed in the biodiversity space during COP15, which is why the secretariat asked Scotland to lead the process for subnational bodies. In Montreal, I met the mayor of Kunming, the deputy mayor of Paris and some amazing people from Sao Paolo, Quebec, California and other parts of America, and it was interesting to talk to them about what they were doing in that ambitious space.

The member is absolutely right that regional governments can do so much, because they are on the ground and are at the coalface of how things happen. I am happy to outline some of the things that we are doing. A lot of stuff will need to be delivered by local authorities, so I meet the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities regularly, and NatureScot works closely with a network of local authority biodiversity officers on those matters.

The nature restoration fund has a specific Edinburgh process stream, which is for local authorities to use to take on projects. We are providing direct funding to local authorities—£5 million was allocated during 2021-22 and £6 million was allocated during 2022-23.

Another interesting initiative for local authorities in Scotland is our nature networks. In October 2022, we announced an additional £200,000 for the expansion of nature networks in Scotland. The vision is that each local authority will have a nature network, which will address the problem of habitat fragmentation. As human activity has encroached on nature, nature has retreated to sort of islands. That is a problem for resilience because it means that species cannot move between those islands and, therefore, cannot keep their genetics healthy by intermingling. It also means that species are less able to adapt to climate because they cannot relocate or move as the climate changes around them. We can tackle habitat fragmentation through nature networks, which will be delivered by local authorities in Scotland. That is very exciting because it means that each local authority can decide what will work for it and what is right for it. I am interested in how we join up those networks across boundaries so that we have a continuous network of nature throughout Scotland. Some really interesting work is happening in that regard.

We have no specific newt knowledge, but we are happy to write to the member on that issue.

That is a serious matter and a really big question. You are right that one of the outcomes detailed in the Scottish Government’s environment strategy is that we need to be responsible global citizens and have a sustainable international footprint. If everyone on earth consumed resources as we do in Scotland, we would need three planets. Our consumption relies on resources—including water, land and biological and mineral resources—that are extracted or used in other parts of the world.

Our environmental impact is so significant that it does not just impact our own country; the impact extends far beyond it. The impacts from how much we overconsume are complex. Some of the commodities that we import are associated with deforestation, water stress and other ecological pressures.

To be good global citizens, we need to make sure that we manage our own consumption here. A big part of that relates to the circular economy, which, as the member rightly points out, is the other part of my portfolio. We need to move to an economy in which we do not tolerate waste of energy or materials, so that we reduce to the bare minimum our extraction from the natural environment. Where possible, we should re-use materials over and over again and use materials that have a long life. That is how we can reduce our impact.

As I touched on earlier, in relation to the impact of plastics on wildlife species, for example, we need to look at how we manage plastics, how we reduce their use and how we make sure that we recycle them when we do need them. We can tackle a lot of our problems in this area by looking at the “how”.