| OUR POLICIES
Using our experience to respond to challenges Adam Smith, Director of Policy Scotland
(Above) Our response to ‘Werritty’, policy objectives and advisory work was guided by our ‘Best Practice with Proof ’ approach, developed through 2020. (Below) The Epicollect app is used to help record species seen. © Graeme Hart/Perthshire Picture Agency
6 | GAME & WILDLIFE REVIEW 2020
Scotland Grouse moor matters dominated the year’s policy work. Best practice management and new data gathering approaches were used to inform the development of new regulation. Natural capital, including carbon management, was developed as a practical and policy tool at GWSDF Auchnerran. Much of GWCT Scotland’s policy effort focused on advising the moorland sector and Scottish Natural Heritage, now NatureScot, on the recommendations of the ‘Werritty’ Grouse Moor Management Review delivered in late 2019. Our response to ‘Werritty’, policy objectives and advisory work was guided by GWCT Scotland’s ‘Best Practice with Proof ’ approach, developed through 2020. This draws on our research, delivers it through our advisors and backs it by providing data gathering facilities and interpretation. The evidence base generated should provide the information Scottish Government and NatureScot need to value the management delivered on Scottish moorlands. We gave extensive advice to the Rural Environment and Land Management (RELM) group of Scottish sporting and land management organisations, including the representative bodies for gamekeepers, owners and guns. RELM co-ordinates this sector’s policy and public relations on moorland issues and advised on shooting practice under lockdown. Our knowledge about hare conservation was accepted by NatureScot who advised the Minister in the run-up to the Scottish Parliamentary debate on an Animal Protection Bill, but scrutiny by-passed at committee stage yielded a wholly political vote which implemented a ban culling mountain hares. We have worked since then to ensure a practical licensing system is introduced to permit the taking of some mountain hares for defined purposes. Scottish Government’s formal response to ‘Werritty’ eventually materialised in November 2020. Despite all the evidence, much from GWCT including compelling data from the Langholm Moor Demonstration Project, Ministers pledged to licence ‘driven grouse businesses’, muirburn and further regulate traps and snares. Our focus has been on maintaining regular contact with NatureScot to build agreement on practical management licensing options and accepting raptor surveys by keepers for conservation assessment, and with Scotland’s Moorland Forum regarding the delivery of our muirburn advisory service and updating the muirburn code. In a year of challenges, there were also successes. We reduced some of the pressure on moorland management by funding and initiating the development of a new vaccine against the tick-borne Louping-Ill disease at the Moredun Research Institute. Though delayed, as so many projects were by Covid, this project is a priority for completion in 2021.
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