Chamber and committees

No beaver has been trapped by Scottish Natural Heritage in the River Ericht.

There are no powers which enable Scottish Natural Heritage to gain access to land to capture beavers where landowners are not willing to give them permission.

However, The Wildlife and Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill, which was passed on 2 March 2011, introduces a new regime of species control orders that would enable access to land to control invasive non-native animals or plants.

Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) staff and volunteer trappers have conducted an informal assessment of the trapping sites and use local knowledge of the presence of otters and other protected species prior to making the decision to proceed with trapping. SNH does not conduct beaver trapping within 30 metres of otter holts.

The licence application by Scottish Wildlife Trust/Royal Zoological Society of Scotland for the Knapdale Trial contains criteria for the success or failure of the beaver trial. If the Knapdale trial is judged successful these criteria could be used to inform the development of wider criteria relating to the possible establishment of beavers in the wild.

Scottish ministers will not only assess the results of the Knapdale Trial, but also take into account other relevant information such as experience from Europe and North America and information from the Beaver-Salmonid Working Group which reports to the National Species Reintroduction Forum.

The licence application by the Scottish Wildlife Trust/Royal Zoological Society of Scotland contains an exit strategy for implementation during, or at the end, of the trial. The exit strategy contains four options for implementation. These are:

Option 1: Repatriation of animals to the country of origin/transfer to other reintroduction programmes;

Option 2: Housing of animals in zoological collections;

Option 3: Capturing, neutering and returning animals to live their life span in the wild; and

Option 4: Humane control of animals.

One beaver has been captured in Tayside by Scottish Natural Heritage and is currently being kept at Edinburgh Zoo by the Royal Zoological Society for Scotland.

The replacement beavers were brought from the Telemark area of Norway.

This would be a matter for the courts to determine.

The Scottish Government has issued its own guidance on procurement policy relating to timber and timber related products. The guidance recommends that public procurement officials should specify in orders and contracts that suppliers must provide evidence that timber and timber products have been lawfully obtained from forests or plantations that are being sustainably managed. It explains which certification schemes can be regarded as evidence in this respect whilst making clear that other evidence of sustainability should also be allowed. It also draws attention to the Central Point of Expertise on Timber (CPET) as a source of advice for assessing evidence for timber which is not part of one of those certification schemes.

The Scottish Government has not carried out any assessment of how the wider public sector in Scotland complies with the criteria set out by CPET.

The Scottish Government first issued guidance to public bodies in Scotland on the policy for procurement of timber and timber products in 2004. A further policy update was issued in 2005. This update gave details of four approved timber schemes, including the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) schemes, that can provide the necessary assurances that timber purchased has been legally harvested from sustainably managed forests.

This policy note also drew attention to the central point of expertise on timber which offers specialist advice on assessment of whether timber which is not part of the main certification schemes can be regarded as legally logged from sustainably managed forests.

In the Scottish Government, all timber products procured on behalf of its Facilities and Estate Services Division, are Forest Stewardship Council certified and the contractor holds evidence to this effect.

Scottish Government agencies are required to follow the guidance referred to above when procuring timber and timber products but no assessment has been made by the Scottish Government in the last 12 months of the relative proportion of FSC, PEFC, other certified or non-certified sources supplied.