Chamber and committees

A Land Management Order can only be made when Scottish Natural Heritage has offered a management agreement to a land manager who subsequently has refused or failed to enter into the agreement or has failed to comply with an existing agreement. Such agreements are made in order to conserve, restore or enhance a natural feature of a Site of Special Scientific Interest or Natura 2000 site, and are usually offered as a means to achieve favourable condition of features where other incentives (such as under the Scottish Rural Development Programme) are not available.

No Land Management Orders have been made under (a) Chapter 3 of the Nature Conservation (Scotland) Act 2004 or (b) regulations 19 and 21 of the Conservation (Natural Habitats, &c.) Regulations 1994.

The main biodiversity concerns during the recent spells of dry weather relate to bodies of freshwater. Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) and Scottish Water hold weekly water scarcity management meetings to identify any action that is required. Following the first water scarcity meeting, a general notice was issued to staff to report evidence of rivers in distress to the SEPA low flow email account. SEPA is monitoring abstraction and alteration of compensation flows.

SNH is monitoring vulnerable freshwater pearl mussel populations. A contingency plan, based on SEPA’s information on water scarcity, has identified populations at greatest risk. There have been some limited translocations to preserve some threatened populations in key areas.

The risk of wildfire resulting from the dry weather has been promoted widely through the media and the revised Muirburn Code sets out the statutory restrictions that apply to muirburn, and good practice for muirburn:

https://www.nature.scot/professional-advice/land-and-sea-management/managing-land/upland-and-moorland/muirburn-code

SEPA currently publish details on salmon farms that pass or fail SEPA’s compliance assessment of environmental standards on:

• a quarterly basis on Scotland’s aquaculture website ( http://aquaculture.scotland.gov.uk/data/data.aspx ). This outlines specific results around individual environmental monitoring surveys that have been submitted to SEPA for assessment.

• an annual basis on SEPA Compliance Assessment Scheme website ( http://apps.sepa.org.uk/compliance/ ). This includes the full compliance results of each active fish farm including their compliance with environmental standards.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-15984 on 26 April 2018 and S5W-16584 on 22 May 2018. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

Forest Research, an agency of the Forestry Commission, collects and publishes data on forest area and new planting as part of the National Forest Inventory and its Forestry Statistics. The number of hectares of forestry and the amount of public and private tree planting in the time periods requested is published in Forestry Statistics . Note that data on the amount of new planting broken down by local authority area is not currently published.

The information in Forestry Statistics is published here:

https://www.forestresearch.gov.uk/tools-and-resources/statistics/statistics-by-topic/woodland-statistics/

The most recent and comparable data sets of woodland area, that can be broken down by Scottish local authority is produced by the National Forestry Inventory, and is available for the years 2010, and 2014 – 2016. I have placed the data in a table in SPICE, BIB number 59844.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on planning applications for development on land which had been subject to previous applications.

The Scottish Government published Scotland’s 10 Year Farmed Fish Health Framework in May [ http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0053/00535697.pdf ]. The framework, which was developed in collaboration with the sector, will drive further improvements to fish health and welfare in Scotland. Key areas of activity will include the development of an action plan to tackle the underlying causes of mortalities on Scottish fish farms and the development and dissemination of guidance on operational best practice for physical sea lice treatments.

There are 38 staff who are members of the dedicated Environment team in Forest Enterprise Scotland currently. Work is ongoing, including consultation with Forestry Commission Trade Unions, to determine the details of the staffing structures in the new administrative arrangements.

The integration of FES Specialist Environmental advisors into the land management planning activity will allow for the creation of more comprehensive plans and give FES the opportunity to deliver, at a landscape scale, more environmental outcomes which will have a positive implication for the delivery of the Scottish Biodiversity Strategy.