Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 09 September 2020
I thank Murdo Fraser for securing the debate.
The £3 million VisitScotland scheme to encourage holidays at home in Scotland has resulted in more staycations, but communities have largely been left to clean up the consequences. In my constituency of Galloway and West Dumfries—the most beautiful constituency in Scotland and the perfect location for our next national park—some of our most loved areas have been violated. That has left them unsafe for visitors, with habitats destroyed and, in some instances, damage caused to the environment, which will take years to recover.
Despite the good work that is being done organisations such as the Loch Ken Trust, which has tried to address dirty camping around Loch Ken, it is clear that we need a national strategy for tackling a range of rural issues, including dirty camping, fly-tipping, wildlife crime and—as the recent NFU Mutual report suggests—rural crime.
The Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 introduced the new right of responsible public access to the land and countryside. Importantly, the right of access applies only when it is exercised responsibly. The Scottish outdoor access code sets out the rights and responsibilities of those exercising that right.
It is not good enough for the minister to say that violations of that code are taken seriously, or that the issue is the responsibility of Police Scotland, as she has said previously. In 2003, we had around 350 countryside rangers in Scotland. In 2017, a survey estimated that 141 jobs had been lost in the preceding nine years. Approximately 54 per cent of those job losses were in local authorities, which have responsibility for upholding and managing access.
Local authorities have faced huge pressure, both financially and from the added burden of managing thousands of new core path miles. Scotland’s ranger services were supported by funding that was managed by Scottish Natural Heritage. However, two fiscal measures were implemented that had an impact on that support, particularly for local authorities.
Indirect funding of local authorities was stopped, which meant that SNH could not give them grant aid. That was mitigated by ring fencing funding for the ranger service, to be held in local authorities’ block grants. A few years ago, that ring-fenced protection was also removed, a policy that had a significant and detrimental effect on local authority ranger services.
To compound that, SNH made a unilateral decision to phase out grant aid to ranger services outwith local authorities, which affected non-governmental organisations, private estates, charities and community-led initiatives and led directly to more ranger job losses. Those policies have been robustly challenged by the Public Petitions Committee and I am pleased that, as a result, a review of the countryside ranger service will be published soon.
To bring members right up to date, we have sadly also lost 15 out of 35 ranger posts in the National Trust for Scotland. As we can see, the national trend is very much downwards.
There is some good news. ScottishPower Renewables has funded two part-time rangers on the southern upland way and other renewable energy organisations have employed a handful of rangers as part of community benefit, which shows that a public-private funding model can be followed in some areas.
The countryside ranger service brings a whole host of benefits to the area that it supports, managing land and water conservation and supporting recreation. Rangers provide a link between visitors and local communities, businesses and agencies, farmers, gamekeepers, foresters, access officers, biodiversity officers, Police Scotland and many other bodies. They help directly to look after the landscape and wildlife in our forest, coastal and urban areas. That will not continue as we face the loss of that expertise. I call on the Scottish Government to consider funding a countrywide countryside ranger apprentice scheme through its green recovery fund to ensure that we do not lose the knowledge that our rangers have built up over the years.
This debate may be on dirty camping, but a range of problems are caused by irresponsible access and the blot that that leaves on our natural environment. We demand more from our Government. I urge ministers to meet me and stakeholders to look at how we can provide urgent funding that will reinvigorate our much-loved and invaluable countryside rangers network.
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