Hansard

I thank Audrey Nicol for lodging her motion and for providing this opportunity to discuss and welcome the Scottish Environment LINK plan.

As we have heard, invasive non-native species are one of the key drivers of biodiversity loss across the globe. The level of intactness of Scotland’s biodiversity is one of the lowest worldwide, with one in nine species currently at risk of extinction. Not every non-native species is established and not all have an immediate damaging environmental impact, but many do, and that has to be managed.

I want to focus on the impact and how we manage one particular species, which is highlighted as a case study in Scottish Environment LINK’s plan—Sitka spruce. Just over a century ago, 5 per cent of Scotland’s land was forested. Today, forest and woodland cover 19 per cent, but that varies across the country.

In Dumfries and Galloway, 31 per cent of the land is covered with woods and forests, making it the most forested part of Scotland. The geography—close to the motorway and with rail links to the market—means that the 211,000 hectares of forest have a disproportionate focus on tree species that meet the demand for timber; it is primarily Sitka spruce. I recognise the consequential positive economic impact that that has on direct employment in forestry and wood-processing jobs in the area and, crucially, on meeting growing demand for timber when we continue to import so much. However, the scale of planting in such a concentrated area puts pressure on inadequate infrastructure, including on roads that were never built for the 40-tonne-plus wagons that are used to remove the timber. It results in pressure on communities that fear the loss of natural habitats, as one particular area of countryside is planted with more and more Sitka and other non-native conifer species that are being grown for commercial reasons.

A consequence of that growth in such planting is the challenge of those species invasively seeding in neighbouring habitats. In his response to the debate, I ask the minister to outline how the Government intends to respond to the issue of non-native commercial conifers—according to the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland plant atlas, Sitka spruce is the fastest-spreading plant species in Scotland. It seeds from plantations into neighbouring peatland and native and community woodland habitats.

Will the minister say what analysis has been conducted on how and to what extent the seeding of non-native conifers is impacting on carbon sequestration, storage functions and the biodiversity of peatlands and native woodland habitats? I urge the minister to set out who he believes is responsible for removing non-native conifers that have seeded from commercial plantations into neighbouring habitats if they cause ecological or carbon storage damage. Does he believe, for example, that the polluter pays principle should apply to invasive non-native species in Scotland? What is the minister’s response to the recent Royal Society of Edinburgh report on forestry, which recommended that Scottish Forestry should require tree-planting schemes to consider how the spread of invasive tree seed to adjoining land, especially peatland, can be prevented, and should require appropriate steps to be taken to reduce such spread, and, where necessary, impose conditions to remove seedlings when it occurs?

I appreciate that I have asked the minister several questions, which I hope he will address in his closing comments, but if he is not able to do so, I hope that he will write to me to set out the Government’s response. I recognise that commercial forestry has a positive economic impact and that it is vital to meeting a demand for timber, but the concentration of planting in some areas has consequences. There will be an opportunity in forthcoming legislation to consider what more we can do to support commercial forestry in managing the impact of Sitka spreading from its important operations on to neighbouring land.