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Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee 09 March 2016

09 Mar 2016 · S4 · Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee

Item of business

Subordinate Legislation

Conservation of Salmon (Scotland) Regulations 2016 (SSI 2016/115)

Beamish, Claudia Lab South Scotland Watch on SPTV

Thank you. My colleagues Jackie Baillie and Elaine Murray also want to highlight issues from their perspective. I have also been asked by Dave Stewart and Rhoda Grant, who are not able to attend the committee, to raise concerns about the fact that the judgments on the gradings have been done—as we lay people understand it—on an area basis. You have highlighted that there will be more detail, but there are concerns among anglers on particular rivers. I will quickly highlight two points to give some evidence about that. David Sutherland, who is a constituent in Dave Stewart’s region, has highlighted that, in the anglers’ view, the “River Ness has been incorrectly graded a 3 category river rather than a 2”. He argues that “the process has been rushed and uses botched data”. He and his colleagues have stressed that they “already return 86% of fish” to the river: they are working on conservation issues. They argue that grading the Ness at category 3 “is based on a tributary where their method of measuring female fish spawning is fatally flawed” and that there is third-party evidence to back that up. Another example also comes from the Highlands. It was highlighted by a constituent of Rhoda Grant’s in Stornoway, called Anton Michel. It concerns the River Creed. That fishery “has been banned from keeping salmon because its district failed the test. The fishery managers have tested the River Creed using the ‘mainland’ test”, which assessed the River Creed “individually on its own merit”. and argue that the river would “definitely pass ... but the Government will not accept this information”. They are saying that the instrument is too blunt. I take the point that we have to start somewhere, and I recognise the importance of protecting salmon as a species, not only under European Union requirements, but because the species is iconic in Scotland. Is there capacity to judge more on an individual-river basis? If we proceed with the regulations today, how will local groups be involved? Some of them are frustrated because they have not been listened to. The instrument is quite blunt, as a first attempt. I seek reassurance for anglers in the considerable areas of Scotland in which there are angling waters. I am not referring just to big estates; I am talking about local angling clubs and people for whom angling is a hobby and is for enjoyment, which brings local tourism and economic benefits. That is very important to a number of colleagues who have constituency concerns.

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Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee 09 March 2016

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