Author: RaptorPersecutionUK

Further to yesterday’s blog about the suddenly-announced two week delay to the Rural Affairs Committee’s deliberations over the Stage 2 amendments of the Wildlife Management & Muirburn Bill (here), an explanation for this delay has now been provided.

And it’s pretty unconvincing, to be honest.

The Convenor of the Rural Affairs & Islands Committee, Finlay Carson MSP (Scottish Conservatives) opened this morning’s meeting by explaining to Committee members that he’d taken the decision to defer due to ‘the weather’.

He felt that as one or two Committee members weren’t able to attend in person, he didn’t want to risk running a hybrid meeting (where members who couldn’t attend in person could attend online) because of the ‘challenges and risks’ that would bring to proceedings.

This explanation was seen as unsatisfactory by two SNP Committee members, Alasdair Allan MSP and Jim Fairlie MSP, who spoke about how hybrid meetings had become common practice since Covid, and indeed that other Committees have managed to handle Stage 2 proceedings perfectly well using this system.

Both SNP members chose their words carefully and clearly wanted it on record that the decision to defer for two weeks was not made by the Committee, but by Finlay Carson alone, as is his prerogative as Convenor. Indeed, both SNP members said the decision had come as a surprise to them and registered their dissatisfaction with the decision.

Alasdair Allan asked for the decision to be taken to a vote by the whole Committee:

“Can I suggest we move to a vote on whether we revert to the original agenda or not?“

Finlay Carson replied:

“That’s not competent. Thank you. We’ll move on…“

That was the end of the discussion and proceedings moved on to an entirely different topic.

If you want to watch this four minute discussion you can see it on the Rural Affairs Committee’s slot on Parliamentary TV (here), starts at 9.06am.

It was interesting to note that as far as I could see, just two Committee members weren’t present at the meeting – Beatrice Wishart MSP (Liberal Democrats & Deputy Convenor of this Committee) and Rachael Hamilton MSP (Scottish Conservatives).

Beatrice Wishart hasn’t played an especially prominent role in this Bill’s proceedings to date but blood sports enthusiast Rachael Hamilton has, and, like her fellow Conservative MSP Finlay Carson, has not been reticent about expressing her fundamental objection to the general principles of the Bill. Indeed, I’d argue she’s been one of the Bill’s fiercest critics (as is her right), at least on this Committee.

Hmm.

Was this huge disruption to Parliamentary proceedings triggered by Rachael’s unavailability? I do wonder.

The good news about this two-week delay is that next week, REVIVE, the Scottish Raptor Study Group and the RSPB are holding a joint reception in the Scottish Parliament which will provide an excellent, and timely, opportunity for MSPs to receive further briefings from those of us who support this Bill and who want some of the more potentially damaging amendments voted down.

Nice.

Earlier this evening I blogged about a two week deferral of voting on the Stage 2 amendments of the Wildlife Management & Muirburn Bill (here).

This deferral decision was made at very short notice and no reason was given for it.

As the evening’s worn on, I’ve heard from a number of people inside the Scottish Parliament who have indicated that political shenanigans may be at play.

To protect confidences I’m not at liberty to say any more at the moment, other than you might want to watch the proceedings of the Rural Affairs & Islands Committee tomorrow morning at 9am (this is the Committee that was due to begin its considerations of the Stage 2 amendments tomorrow). The meeting’s current agenda is here.

The Stage 2 amendments may be returned to the agenda tomorrow morning, or if not, it may become clear why they’ve been removed from tomorrow’s agenda…

Regardless of whether or not deliberations begin tomorrow, it’s quite clear that the Committee’s consideration of the Stage 2 amendments will need to take place over a number of sessions/weeks given the number of lodged amendments so far.

As it stands at the moment (Stage 2 amendments not due to even begin to be considered until 7 February), this goes against a Parliamentary motion passed just last week, ‘That the Parliament agrees that consideration of the Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill at stage 2 be completed by 9 February 2024‘.

The Rural Affairs & Islands Committee opens for business at 9am tomorrow (Weds 24 Jan) and should be available for viewing on Scottish Parliament TV (here).

UPDATE 24 January 2024: Decision to defer Wildlife Management Bill Stage 2 amendments unconvincingly based on ‘weather’ (here)

Just before Christmas a new scientific paper was published by experts from Leeds University, revealing that burning on deep peat is widespread on many Scottish grouse moors, and that, surprise surprise, land managers were ignoring the new (voluntary) Muirburn Code which suggests burning on peatland should be avoided (see here).

Today, one of the study’s authors, Dominick Spracklen, Professor of Biosphere-Atmosphere Interactions at the University of Leeds has written an easy-to-understand blog about the study to help the public (and I daresay politicians engaging with the Wildlife Management & Muirburn Bill) understand the importance of minimising the extent of these peatland fires.

It’s well worth a read – here.

A blog reader who works as an upland peatland specialist has written the following blog.

With the Wildlife Management and Muirburn Bill passing through the Scottish Parliament we are soon to see a tightening of the regulation around grouse shooting and burning in the Scottish uplands. This is long overdue, but welcome, nonetheless. So many have fought for so long to get to this point; but the Bill is not over the line yet, with changes possible over the coming weeks.

A recent post on this blog highlighted some of the sorts of changes that could be made by pointing to the amendments lodged by Edward Mountain MSP and one of those jumped out as important. It seems innocuous and inconsequential but the suggestion to change the definition of peat depth from 40cm to 60cm does have implications.

Why does that matter so much? It matters because the Bill is designed to offer protection to peatlands and amendments such as this would weaken that protection.

Under the terms of the Bill, an owner or occupier of land will have to apply for a licence to undertake muirburn, but they can only burn for specific reasons and these reasons are different on different types of land. Where the land is peatland, the owner or occupier may apply for a licence for the purpose of restoring the natural environment, preventing or reducing the risk of wildfires, or research. Where the land is not considered to be peatland, they can apply for a licence to burn for sporting, farming, conservation, wildfire management or research purposes. In effect, burning on peatlands is restricted; land managers will not be able to burn on peatlands for sporting or farming purposes.

Consequently, since the Bill is structured to treat peatlands differently, the definition of what is, and what is not, a peatland, really matters. It determines where different sets of rules apply.  

At present the Bill defines ‘peatland’ as “land where the soil has a layer of peat with a thickness of more than 40 centimetres” (where “peat” means soil which has an organic content of more than 60%).

In one way this definition does represent an improvement on the status quo because the current Muirburn Code refers to 50cm and the lower the threshold the larger the area that is considered to be peatland where the restricted rules apply. But, more fundamentally, these depth thresholds can have perverse consequences because they create artificial thresholds that don’t really exist. The consequence of this definition is that extensive areas of shallow peat of a depth less than 40cm will effectively be treated as ‘not peatland’, despite the fact that they are functionally part of a peatland and actually the most vulnerable areas. The IUCN Peatland Programme calls these areas the ‘lost peatlands’:

Despite these areas containing substantial carbon stores and often being vital to the wider ecology and hydrological function of connected deeper peat deposits, we, for the bureaucratic purpose of setting rules around burning, say that they are not peatlands. The result is that, under the terms of the Bill, a land manager will legitimately be able to burn on shallow peat for grouse shooting or farming purposes.  

The crux of the issue is that the legislation is clearly designed to try and protect peatlands by treating them differently, but at the same time the definition of a peatland limits the benefit.

If we look again at the Edward Mountain suggestion to change the depth definition from 40cm to 60cm, the effect would be to reduce the area that is considered peatland and so reduce the area where the greater restrictions apply. Conversely it would increase the area where burning for sporting and farming purposes would be possible. This would seem to run counter to the intention of the legislation.

Arguably, the best option would be to just stop defining peatlands (for the purposes of burning) by depth and say that we shouldn’t be burning on peat/peaty soil for sporting and farming purposes (noting, of course, that burning for the purpose of nature restoration, wildfire prevention and research would still be allowed). At the time of writing there is still time for this reasonable approach to be taken forward through amendments at Stage 2 or possibly later at Stage 3, so it remains to be seen whether the rhetorical importance that our politicians give to peatlands translates into real decisions in law.