Chamber and committees

That is where the guidance that NatureScot will develop will come in. We have kept it quite strict in the bill. There is a second part to the definition in the bill, which states:

“‘peat’ means soil which has an organic content ... of more than 60%”—

You can see why that is not in the bill. In collaboration with the many different types of businesses that we are talking about, it needs to be decided what guidance they need, what is acceptable and what practices will take place. That will be dealt with in the guidance.

I guess that it comes back to that definition. We have set out in the bill what we want to see licensing for. As Christine Grahame said, the definition of peatland in the bill refers to a depth of 40cm; the other part of that definition is that peatland is soil that has an organic content of more than 60 per cent.

Members will have the bill in front of them, but I will read from it. Applications for muirburn on peatland could be for the purposes of

“restoring the natural environment ... preventing, or reducing the risk of, wildfires causing damage to habitats”,

or

“preventing, or reducing the risk of, wildfires causing harm to people or damage to property”.

Those are probably the reasons why applications would be made. For example, a land manager might want to create habitats for ground-nesting birds such as grouse. I know that there is an established practice of burning pockets of vegetation to provide areas that encourage birds to nest.

To take a topical issue, there could be a situation in which a land manager wants to use muirburn to prevent wildfire, which would be absolutely acceptable. If the area in which they wanted to do that was peatland, they would have to have a licence.

The last reason is research. Any research would be acceptable. That goes back to the idea of collecting data, which I mentioned in my response to Ms Grant.

Those are all acceptable reasons for wanting to carry out muirburn on peatland. The code and the licensing system that will be set up by NatureScot will include guidance on that, but that is what the bill says.

I will probably have to bring in Hugh Dignon, because I do not have a list of the other methods in front of me. We have to be clear that muirburn will not be the first option if another process could achieve the same outcome, because muirburn has the potential to damage the peat. If someone goes straight to using muirburn without taking other methods into account, NatureScot will probably want to know what else they have looked at and why they cannot use other methods.

On the question of what those other methods are, I ask Hugh to help me out.

That would be a reason for using an alternative method. If someone makes the case that they do not want to cut heather because that could provide fuel for a wildfire, that is a perfectly legitimate argument to put forward. That is where collaboration and communication come in, and that is where the code would come in, too.

It is also worth saying that, if someone applies to muirburn on peat, NatureScot will not just rubber stamp that. I suggest that there should be an opportunity in the application process for someone to state the reason why they want to do that—which is set out in the bill—and why it is necessary. That will be taken into account.

I think that that is a good word to use for those cases, and maybe we need to reflect on that at stage 2.

It is great to hear that example from you, Ariane, because peatlands can provide a natural firebreak if they are in good condition. If they are degraded, they probably will not, but if they are in good condition they can. That is why we are putting so much effort into rewetting. There are a number of schemes that you will be very familiar with in that area, because that provides a natural firebreak. It is great to hear that exemplified.

However, we have to recognise that some muirburn practices can also provide a firebreak. I am not an expert in how fire works. The experts, of course, are in the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service. Work is being undertaken with the service at the moment, and it is liaising on that. The people in the service are obviously the ones who have to deal with it on the front line when a wildfire happens.

We also come to the question: what are the major causes of wildfires? There are two. One—this is a sort of practical aspect—is human behaviour, which is the usual cause. Another is that the increasing prevalence of wildfires in northern countries—we are one of those—is due to climate change. A couple of years ago, I was in the Arctic circle, where we met some representatives of the Sámi people, who are from the north of Norway. For the very first time in their existence, they were dealing with wildfires in the Arctic circle, so we cannot dispute that fact.

Peatland and rewetting provide a carbon sink, which is helping in that regard. Their restoration is helping to protect against wildfires and helping us to reach our climate change objectives. Obviously, Scotland cannot do that alone—all countries have to be involved in that—but climate change is one of the main reasons why we are seeing more wildfires. You will have seen on the news that there are terrible wildfires in Canada, which are making cities in America the most polluted places. The air quality in Chicago, for example, is intolerable. However, if the Sámi people of the Arctic circle are dealing with wildfires, that tells a story.

When my officials were in front of the committee three or four weeks ago, we hoped to have a decision by today on whether we would seek to amend the bill in that regard. The reality is that we are still looking at proposals that have been put to us about other types of snares. We do not want to make a decision before we have fully investigated those proposals, but our decision will be imminent.

I am conscious that, as Christine Grahame said at the 31 May meeting, the committee will need time to scrutinise whatever we decide to do; I am completely alive to that fact. When I convened committees, I got quite upset when things changed halfway through a bill process and there was not adequate time for scrutiny, so I understand that the committee needs to know our position on snaring quite quickly. The committee can expect a decision very soon.

When stakeholders tell us—as they have done, particularly from the gamekeeping fraternity—that there are more humane ways of doing things that they would like us to look at and that there has been modernisation in the field, it is incumbent on us not to dismiss that out of hand and simply barrel on regardless. We need to consider whether the mechanisms are humane, and we do that with veterinary and animal welfare colleagues.

To respond to Ms Wishart’s question, I cannot give a date, because I do not know it yet, but it will be soon.

Let me answer the question. Measures that we have put in place are still not making the significant difference that we intended them to make; they are not eradicating that crime. The fact that there has been recorded crime does not mean that unrecorded crime does not exist. I also note that a lot of the evidence has disappeared.

We are maybe talking about tagged birds—so, there would have been 11 tagged bird crimes in 2020. However, what of the ones that are not tagged? We have no way of knowing. Hugh knows about that figure.

Maybe we can put that down in the bill at stage 2, to set that out a little more strongly. I am open to that.