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But there is no new science.

Thank you, convener. I am grateful to you and the committee for the opportunity to participate in this morning’s session. I should confess at the start that I am not an expert on fish or fisheries, but I have constituents who are academic experts in the field.

Cabinet secretary, you and Dr Needle seemed to suggest that there is no robust evidence, based on what is going on in the Clyde, although you might have evidence from elsewhere. I think that there is also acknowledgment that cod stocks in the Clyde could well be different to cod stocks elsewhere, yet the cabinet secretary says that the decision is evidence based. I am not quite clear who is right. Has it been a risk-based assessment, which is one thing, or has it been evidence based? If it is evidence based, will you publish that evidence?

Can that be fed into changes for 2023, if the evidence suggests that that is required?

Convener, I was staying quiet because I do not have a vote, as I am not a member of the committee. My opening position is that I share the ambition to protect cod stocks. However, the way that the process has been done has led to a lack of confidence in Marine Scotland’s thinking and evidential base, and that has harmed the debate.

There is a lack of specific evidence about the Clyde. That has been acknowledged by everybody. It is being rectified, and I welcome that. However, it is the case that cod in the Clyde are different. On the west coast, juveniles occupy shallow coastal habitats, whereas, in the North Sea, they occupy offshore banks. Their behaviours are different, and we have not taken the time to understand that.

I understand the risk-based approach, but the Government appears to be muddling the evidential and the risk-based approaches, because evidence in relation to the Clyde is simply not there. I am genuinely worried that we are excluding areas that we previously thought it important to include. Whether that is based on evidence, discussion or debate, I genuinely do not know. We are at risk of taking away people’s livelihoods but might not be protecting the areas that we need to protect. On that basis, I genuinely ask whether the cabinet secretary would withdraw the SSI and bring it back, because we share the ambition of protecting the cod stocks. However, we need to do that properly; the exercise has not been done properly, on this occasion.

So, there is no new science.

I think that the reality is that we do not know, because there have not been studies—that is the point that I am making. It is a risk-based assessment because you do not have the evidential knowledge that would inform the decision.

That area was included before, however, on the basis of the same evidence. Your evidence has not changed.

Given your comprehensive introduction to the petition, convener, you have taken away most of my comments.

I am grateful to you and to the committee for the opportunity to speak to this petition from Audrey Baird and Fiona Baker, both of whom are my constituents. Members will know that I am not an expert in ancient or native woodland but, in learning about the petition, I am absolutely persuaded of the need to protect our woodlands, and I therefore hope that the committee will support its aims.

The petitioners believe that our ancient and native woodlands are being colonised. I have copies of pictures that show that. I do not know whether it is appropriate to circulate them to members, but a picture does what 1,000 words cannot do. It shows the invasion of non-native species in our countryside.

Scotland’s ancient woodlands, its Atlantic rainforest and other land are being colonised by invasive non-native conifer species, which, as you said, already cover one sixth of the country. It is interesting to note that while New Zealand, which is remarkably similar to Scotland, is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to remove invasive conifers, we have the opposite situation in Scotland. As you rightly referenced, we planted 10,500 hectares in the past year and have an ambition to plant an additional 18,000 hectares each year in the next three years.

New Zealand is not alone. Irish authorities have issued contracts for the removal of self-seeded conifers in an attempt to protect their woodlands from being colonised in a similar way. As I understand it, conifers take anything from six to 40 years to mature. They produce copious amounts of seeds that can live in the soil for decades before they germinate. Once they take hold, they rapidly invade, outgrow and destroy native woodlands.

Another set of issues is the impact on local communities, which members may have experienced. Such plantations are often promoted by faceless investment companies, some of which are global actors, that buy up land in Scotland. In an article a few days ago, the Daily Record described how tax haven companies such as Gresham House are taking advantage of tree planting in Scotland.

Their investment opens access to tax breaks. There is no income tax, corporation tax or capital gains tax in relation to growing timber. In their brochures, the investment companies talk about forestry funds providing their high-net-worth clients with inheritance-tax-efficient structures. I know that I digress slightly, but the committee should be aware of the motivation of some of those companies. It is not about climate change or the environment; it is about tax-efficient funds. Some might even describe it as tax-avoidance funds for wealthy clients.

The companies outbid local communities for land, and farmers in those areas are often extremely concerned that productive land is lost. Community consultation is meaningless and road safety concerns about large haulage lorries going through small rural communities are swept aside. I know this, because there is currently a consultation affecting my area for a 200-acre afforestation scheme at Stuckenduff involving the one and only Gresham House.

Nature and life are all about balance. It would therefore be interesting to know how many commercial afforestation schemes there are, and how many are conifers and how many are native woodland. As the petition noted, we have only something like 1 per cent of our ancient woodland left. We need to protect the remaining fragments of that ancient woodland, semi-native woodland and woodland floor for future generations. That means providing full legal protection.

You were right to reference the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, which states:

“any person who plants, or otherwise causes to grow, any plant in the wild at a place outwith its native range is guilty of an offence.”

The forest industry is exempt, but I would be curious to know how often that has been enforced in Scotland in the past 41 years and, indeed, why there are no controls on the forestry industry, because it has a direct impact on our ancient woodlands.

I will leave you with a surprising fact, which I confess to not being aware of before and which you referenced, convener. According to the United Nations COP15 in China, invasive species and destructive land use are two of the five biggest threats to the natural world. I certainly did not know that before. Surely, it is time for Scotland to update its legal framework to take account of that growing body of knowledge of the impact of invasive non-native species and act to protect what remains of our ancient native woodland.

They were. My photographic skills are not as good as theirs.