Seòmar agus comataidhean

We are looking at a variety of measures to support small producers. As I outlined in my answer to the convener, although hundreds of producers are signed up, there are some who have not yet signed up. We are digging into the detail of what the challenges are there. In response to conversation with those producers, Circularity Scotland has already put in place considerable cash flow measures—£22 million-worth of measures have been put in to reduce up-front costs and help with cash flow, because that was identified as a barrier.

Another identified barrier for small producers was labelling. Getting their bottles redesigned with a different barcode requires minimum order quantities and it takes a long time. To remove that barrier, Circularity Scotland will be issuing sticky labels to producers. When they have fewer than 25,000 of any particular product, they can get those labels from Circularity Scotland. They will kind of already be pre-registered, because the labels will have been issued to them.

Those are two—

The member is absolutely right. The scheme has to work for every person in Scotland because every person in Scotland will pay their 20p and so they need to be able to get it back easily and conveniently. That is how the scheme is intended to work.

At the moment, exemption is an opt-out process. By default, all businesses that sell the containers are obliged to be return points. Therefore, any convenience store in a small town or on an island where you can buy drinks also has to be a return point unless it is exempt.

It is absolutely the intention that that will be the mechanism in small rural and remote areas. The place where someone buys their juice should also be the place where they return the item. The proximity exemptions are much more likely to apply in urban areas where a group of shops are close together. They will not apply in rural areas where there is only one shop, for example.

Circularity Scotland and Biffa are very conscious of “black spots”, which is the industry term. As the registrations for return points come in, they will monitor the situation very closely and engage with any businesses that appear to be in a black spot to ensure that there are adequate return points. I believe that Biffa is also looking at the possibility of mobile return points to collect from very rural areas.

The issue is common to how schemes around the world work.

I do not.

The matter of recovering and protecting vulnerable and important species is one of the five themes that the biodiversity strategy covers. The strategy has 26 actions that we are taking for nature, grouped into those five themes. Theme 4 is to recover and protect vulnerable species, and one of the actions there is to

“Revise the Scottish Biodiversity List of species and habitats that Scottish Ministers consider to be of principal importance for biodiversity conservation in Scotland”.

Perhaps Matthew Bird or Lisa McCann can add some detail on that process.

Thank you, convener, and thank you for inviting me here today to discuss the outcomes from COP15 and how we are integrating them into our biodiversity strategy. I know that you have already heard overwhelming evidence about the extent of the biodiversity crisis that we are facing here in Scotland and across the world, and about the importance of taking action now to tackle the decline in nature.

You have also heard about the historic Kunming-Montreal global biodiversity framework, which was agreed at the end of last year. That framework builds on a vision, which I hope you share, of a world that is living in harmony with nature and where, by 2050, biodiversity is valued, conserved, restored and wisely used, through maintaining ecosystem services.

As you are aware, I was honoured to attend COP15 with a small Scottish delegation, which culminated in our presenting the Edinburgh declaration to that conference’s high-level segment, on behalf of subnational bodies. As well as calling for a high-ambition outcome from the meeting in Montreal, the Edinburgh declaration also called for the critical role that subnational bodies play in addressing the biodiversity crisis to be recognised and allocated the necessary resources and powers to help to tackle it. I am delighted that the declaration was adopted at the conference and now forms part of the new global biodiversity framework.

The Scottish Government led the Edinburgh process at the request of the Convention on Biological Diversity’s secretariat, and I am very proud of the work that was done to promote it and to garner support for it. That work is demonstrated by the fact that, at the final count, the declaration had been signed by more than 300 subnational bodies from around the world.

Our draft biodiversity strategy was published to coincide with COP15, but it remained in draft form to allow us to take into account the new global biodiversity framework, thereby ensuring that we are meeting the global ambition. The strategy is where we set out our high-level vision for a nature-positive Scotland and our ambition to halt biodiversity loss by 2030 and reverse declines by 2045. I have often wondered whether that is ambitious enough; although there has been a huge amount of really positive activity across Scotland in recent years—for example our scaling up of peatland restoration and our groundbreaking nature restoration fund—it is clear that there is still a huge amount of work to do. The type of change that we need takes time, which is why it is even more important that we start taking action now.

We are currently refining the strategy and are now very much focused on developing the delivery plans that will sit underneath it. Those plans will be where we will set out how we are going to achieve our high-level vision and outcomes.

I was very grateful to the committee for the careful and detailed consideration that it gave to the draft biodiversity strategy last year. Your comments formed an important part of our consideration in developing the strategy and, as I set out when I wrote to the committee in December 2022, many of those points were incorporated in the final draft.

We are also starting to explore with our subnational partners the next steps on implementing the Edinburgh declaration and how best we can work together to really deliver on the new global framework. I welcome this discussion today and I appreciate the attention that the committee is giving to this important matter.

You have identified three very important areas—food, energy and housing—and that is exactly the kind of mainstreaming that we are considering. Reform of the agriculture subsidies is to do with environmental matters as well as food security. The different interests are not necessarily competing—agriculture is part of the solution to the climate crisis, and regenerative farming and crofting have an important role to play in how we do this while ensuring that the sector thrives. Those matters are dealt with under land reform and agricultural reform.

Energy and housing will come under the national planning framework, which contains clear guidance on having biodiversity built in as well as specific guidance on national development and the development guidance that I have just outlined. I think that we are well covered for biodiversity in those areas.

The phrase “zonal approach” has not come across my desk. However, ensuring that local communities are involved is important. With any investment in natural capital, we have to empower local communities. We cannot have a just transition through imposing things on communities; it needs to come from them. The convener is right in saying that we need to consider who is benefiting from land and how we invest in it. I am happy to take that away and consider it.

Absolutely. The Scottish Government has already committed to maintaining broad alignment with EU environmental standards, and we have been monitoring with interest the development of the EU’s ambitious nature restoration law. In fact, our strategy sets out the metrics that we would use to measure against the targets that the EU has set out.

At the moment, the EU law and the targets are proposals, and they are subject to negotiation between member states and amendment by the European Parliament. Our approach is not to wait for them but to develop our own targets and delivery proposals; however, we will take account of what is going on in Europe as those developments emerge.

I am very happy to take that under consideration. I can write to the member on that point.