The discussion has been very interesting. We do want to hear you talk, Simon Jones, and the more you talk, the better.
Simon Jones mentioned local action on biodiversity, but what we have been talking about up until now are crofts, farms and estates. We should look at the really local level when we consider how we deal with biodiversity.
If you look at the natural capital asset index graph, you see that back in 1950, one year after I was born, the score was very high and by 2010 it had halved. I would be interested to know whether it has improved since 2010, because that was five years ago; I do not know whether Rob Brooker or anyone else can help us with that.
My second point is perhaps more important. I was born in a house in Moray Street in Lossiemouth that had a bit of ground behind it. That had been planned by the burghers of Elgin when they built that new part of Lossiemouth. The piece of land was 60 feet wide and 180 feet back to the next street. Every house in that area had a piece of land that was exactly the same. That was put in place quite deliberately, to allow people to grow their own food, keep chickens and all the rest of it.
Our garden was full. My father was a baker, and he would start work at 3 in the morning, come home at midday, when he would have a wee snooze, and then he would go out to work his garden in the afternoon and evening. He grew lots of stuff, as did many of our neighbours.
That would have added considerably to the high natural capital value in 1950, because lots of people were doing that, not just farmers, crofters and estate owners. We need to get back to having that kind of effect again. The way to do it, which I would value comment on, is to get youngsters interested in gardening and horticulture at an early age.
That is a real problem at the moment. There is a fantastic little unit out at Aonach Mòr, the Lochaber Rural Education Trust, which is run by Isabel and Linda Campbell. They take youngsters and school groups out and get them interested in growing things and animals and so on. That charitable organisation struggles to get any kind of funding. We have been trying to help, but we just cannot source any funding. If they cannot get funding, they will have to close down. There is lots of money out there under the SRDP. Maybe it is not as much as everyone would like and there are big cuts, but why are we not diverting some of the funds down to the Lochaber Rural Education Trust and to schools that encourage youngsters to grow? If we can get people back to growing their own, even if it is only a hobby to get a better quality of vegetables, we would have a massive army of people across the country, and they would add to our natural capital asset.
10:45
I would like to know the panel’s views on that. Perhaps you are at a different level and have not thought about the micro level, but I would appreciate hearing your views. Have things improved or got worse since 2010?