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 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.

We also completed our first carbon audit and natural capital assessments at our Scottish Demonstration Farm. This is an extremely important move as the farm begins to show both progress towards net farming income and net environmental gain.

England

Our work on the new Agriculture Bill sees soil management recognised.

The new scheme aims to deliver for farmers, wildlife, the environment and society.

Re-nationalising policymaking following our departure from the European Union meant 2020 was a very busy year. For the Trust, there are two areas of particular interest that impact directly and indirectly – game and wildlife conservation. The first concerns the way we farm our land and this policy is embedded, unsurprisingly, in the Agriculture Act. One might have thought that this would not be too difficult a task to get agreement on across the political spectrum given the universal unpopularity of its predecessor, the EU Common Agricultural Policy, or the CAP, as we came to know it. Indeed reforming the CAP is the only political theme I can recall that unites all parties. Yet still there were areas of profound disagreement, particularly over the promise that environmental and welfare standards in this country would be maintained as a condition of any Trade deal, but then not legally enshrined in the Act. Government backbenchers in the Commons sought to bring an amendment which was swept aside, and the Lords did likewise. The hastily assembled Food and Trade Commission was given greater authority to scrutinise Trade deals, but still can only provide non-binding recommendations. It is important that farmers who are delivering environmental benefits are not economically disadvantaged and potentially put out of business by those elsewhere who are not.

We were, however, pleased that soil management was included within the Act. Originally soil had been designated as a private asset which meant it was not for the State to involve itself with. But we, and others, argued that this was too narrow a definition and given about half of our food supply is dependant upon it surely it represented something of public interest. This was recognised, which is important because while we cannot use public money to support private assets, we can to support public ones. This means we can fund soil preservation and restoration measures in the new Environmental Land Management Scheme, which is the flagship scheme that the Government is rolling out to support farmland conservation.

This is the second policy area we have been busy helping co-design. We have learnt a great deal about what does and doesn’t work from previous environment schemes and it is imperative that we use this experience to shape a scheme that delivers for farmers, wildlife, the environment and society going forward. Alastair Leake Director of Policy and Parliamentary Affairs

It is important that farmers who are delivering environmental benefits are not economically disadvantaged and potentially put out of business by those elsewhere who are not. © Peter Thompson