Portfolio Question Time – in the Scottish Parliament at on 11 September 2024.
Graham Simpson
Conservative
To ask the Scottish Government for what reason rainforests were excluded from the deer management incentive scheme pilots. (S6O-03688)
Jim Fairlie
Scottish National Party
The purpose of the pilots is to explore incentives for deer management in different local circumstances. The pilots were designed around a number of criteria, including access to data on current cull levels and the potential barriers to increasing deer management. The focus of the pilots is on red deer in Cairngorms national park, roe deer in the central belt and sika deer in south Loch Ness.
We also provide support for projects that help to restore and expand Scotland’s rainforests, as part of which funding is available to reduce deer impacts, alongside other activities, including rhododendron control.
Graham Simpson
Conservative
The Minister will know that deer are a natural part of the rainforest ecosystem, but the increasing number of deer and their mobility mean that they are one of the main barriers to rainforest restoration.
Given that the Scottish Government has committed to restoring Scotland’s rainforests, I ask the minister to reconsider his current position and to ensure that the deer management incentive scheme will be extended to key rainforest locations.
Jim Fairlie
Scottish National Party
We will not expand the current pilot scheme, but it is part of a package of looking at how we will manage deer across the whole country. Rainforests are crucial to what we will look at as we go forward.
Although the deer management incentive scheme pilots are looking at a specific set of circumstances, Graham Simpson can be assured that rainforests are very much part of our longer-term thinking.
Kenneth Gibson
Scottish National Party
Does the Minister agree that deer management plans should consider biodiversity? What progress is being made towards reintroducing Scotland’s native Eurasian lynx to help to control deer populations naturally, as has successfully happened over the past 50 years in Austria, Croatia, Czechia, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Slovenia and Switzerland, without any adverse impact on people, pets or livestock?
Jim Fairlie
Scottish National Party
There are no intentions to allow the introduction of lynx in Scotland.
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