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Response by the Scottish Executive to the National Goose Management Review Group Report
As the Scottish Ministers responsible for agriculture, the environment and rural development, it gives us, jointly, great pleasure to provide a formal response to this five year review of goose management policy in Scotland.
We are grateful to the National Goose Management Review Group (" NGMRG") for the considerable effort which has clearly been invested in this thorough and comprehensive evaluation of current goose management arrangements. We are grateful, too, for the equally indispensable contributions made by local goose management groups, both in implementing existing policy and in supporting the NGMRG's review work.
As recently as the late 1990s, the interaction between wild geese and agriculture in Scotland was a contentious issue, and fraught with difficulty. Seemingly irreconcilable interests were locked in apparently intractable conflict. And government, as so often happens, was caught squarely in the middle - as a legitimate target for complaints and grievances from all sides.
That history is important to recall. It is important because we should remind ourselves just how far, and how quickly, we have all travelled since then.
Goose management has become one of the big success stories of agricultural and nature conservation policy in Scotland. It is a success which demonstrates the value of dialogue and discussion, of co-operation, and of commitment to achieving mutually-beneficial solutions. It is also a success which provides a model for conflict-resolution and partnership-working in other areas of public policy.
Scotland has now had a coherent national policy framework for managing the interaction between geese and agriculture for a little over five years. That policy framework is founded on the report of the National Goose Forum - presented to Ministers in February 2000 and approved, following public consultation, as the basis for national policy in April of that year.
It is evident from the work undertaken by the NGMRG that the current national policy arrangements have worked well. It is apparent also that these existing arrangements, updated where necessary to reflect the recommendations in the NGMRG report, should continue to provide a coherent and effective framework, within which both local management arrangements and broader scale initiatives can be accommodated for the future.
The ultimate test for any policy is whether it delivers the desired results. There is no doubt that goose management policy in Scotland is doing precisely that.
Scotland has an important obligation to conserve and support a range of unique and internationally-important migratory populations of geese. The scientific work presented as part of the NGMRG review demonstrates that, overall, the conservation status of these goose populations is very healthy. Indeed, in a number of cases the population size has increased significantly since the 1990s.
Against that background, of conservation success and population expansion, it is reassuring to find that the seven local goose management schemes approved since 2000 have been equally successful in delivering the second key element of the national policy framework - by minimising the economic losses experienced by farmers and crofters. The schemes have provided a fair and transparent means of supporting the work done by land managers in dealing with large numbers of geese, and the additional costs they have to bear.
And both of these objectives - conserving geese and protecting the livelihoods of often hard-pressed land managers - have been achieved, by and large, efficiently and with an awareness of the importance of delivering value for money. In fact, independent work done in conjunction with the NGMRG review demonstrates that goose management arrangements in Scotland deliver genuine economic benefit - not least by securing outcomes which are valued by society at large, and by ensuring that the significant local costs of conserving geese are shared more equitably. That is an important conclusion and one which again emphasises the success, not to mention the breadth and ambition, of the existing policy framework.
Striking an effective balance between the legitimate agricultural business objectives of land managers and our international conservation responsibilities has not been an easy task. It is something which individual local schemes have achieved not only successfully but in ways which are best suited to particular local circumstances.
It is this adaptability of the national policy framework which is one of its core strengths. Rigid prescriptions, applied uniformly in areas as diverse as Strathbeg, the Solway or the Uists, would have been significantly less effective in delivering the conservation or agricultural outcomes identified in the NGMRG report. Nor would they have been as successful in dovetailing with other important features of Executive policy - for example, on sustainability, or in supporting and empowering local communities.
That kind of adaptive management has been central to the successes achieved by local schemes. It is also a vital principle with application at the national level. Whilst the evidence from the updated Population Viability Analyses commissioned for the NGMRG review indicates that the majority of goose populations are now at healthy levels and have a viable long-term future, we must remain alert to potential threats. Effective monitoring, both locally and on a wider scale, is important in picking up early warning signs and indicators of changing trends. Where necessary, these indicators will inform changes to practical management arrangements.
Given the migratory nature of most of the goose populations found in Scotland, it is inevitable that some of the potential future threats to viability will arise in areas outwith the limits of our own national policy framework. Close international collaboration and partnership will be essential if migratory goose populations are to be managed effectively across the entirety of their range. International co-operation will also be vital if we are to begin to address the potential consequences of trans-national environmental impacts, such as climate change.
There are other challenges for the future which will make demands on our ability to adjust and adapt. It is important, as the NGMRG report recognises, to set goose management measures in a wider context. Biodiversity conservation is an overarching objective which gained a statutory basis in last year's Nature Conservation (Scotland) Act. We must not forget that large numbers of geese can have a negative impact on the habitats and ecology of other fauna and flora. A focus simply on single-species conservation measures, which ignore wider potential impacts, is no longer appropriate. We need to continue to find ways of striking a sensible balance between potentially-competing interests.
Nor should we forget that geese, in common with much of our wildlife, are heavily dependent on the availability of food sources and habitats which can only realistically be delivered through the good stewardship of Scotland's agricultural landscape. A great deal is changing in the agricultural environment. Reforms to agricultural support mechanisms in Europe will inevitably mean that some features of current arrangements will have to evolve. A key task will be to ensure that the mutual benefit which existing goose schemes have been able to deliver are part also of our wider vision for the future of rural land management in Scotland.
We have, in the NGMRG review, a solid and reliable basis on which to take forward goose policy for at least the next five years, and beyond. We are particularly grateful to the NGMRG for setting out its recommendations in such clear and definitive fashion. Given the clarity of the recommendations, and the depth and extent of investigation and analysis which underpins them (and which is documented in the comprehensive annexes to the main report), we have no hesitation in endorsing the findings of the NGMRG and in approving the recommendations set out in the report.
The national policy framework which has been in existence since 2000 will therefore continue to shape goose management arrangements in Scotland, subject to the revised NGMRG recommendations, until a further review of policy is undertaken in 2010.
We are also happy for the NGMRG to continue its work, building on the successes of its first five years, and welcome its proposals for adapting its operations to changing circumstances. Central to this will be a continuation of the consensus-building and partnership which have been instrumental in delivering the conservation, agricultural and value for money outcomes which the NGMRG review has identified.
It would be naïve to pretend that hard work does not remain to be done. But if that work can be approached in the same co-operative, committed and objective spirit which has been so evident in recent years, there is every reason to believe that we can, continue to deliver the innovative conservation and land management successes which the NGMRG has highlighted in the attached report.
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ROSS FINNIE | RHONA BRANKIN |
4 July 2005
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