THE SNP special conference which opens in Perth today is likely to debate the crisis at Dounreay and the lessons of the Knoydart saga for land reform as emergency topical resolutions.

The two-day conference is primarily concerned with selection procedures for next May's first elections to the Scottish Parliament and is set for a showdown on gender equality, but there will be allowance in the timetable today and tomorrow for emergency debates.

Continued pollution scares at Dounreay and this week's announcement of an apparent loss of nuclear material mean pressure for this subject to be discussed, and it is understood that one possibility is an emergency resolution calling for concerns about the nuclear industry to be referred to the Council of the Isles involving representatives of the parliaments and assemblies of Northern Ireland, the Irish Republic, Wales and Scotland.

The Sellafield nuclear reprocessing establishment discharges into the Irish Sea and is a matter of concern to all four legislatures, making it an ideal subject for discussion by the new body, and Dounreay's recent problems could be linked in to that.

The recurring problems of the Knoydart Estate are seen as exemplifying the need for land reform which the SNP believes should be one of the first priorities for the Scottish Parliament to tackle through legislation.

These topics remain only possibilities for debate since emergency resolutions are not selected until the day itself. But chief executive Michael Russell said that whatever topical debates were selected, they will bring home to delegates just how close they are to gaining at least some measure of power in Scotland.

The main purpose of the conference is to finalise selection procedures for next May. Those making it on to the regional lists which under proportional representation will bring the SNP many of the MSPs will be voted for through direct party democracy, but the conference will decide between three different possible mechanisms.

The fiercest debate will come tomorrow when delegates decide whether to include an element of positive discrimination in the selection procedure to use the regional lists of additional members to ensure a degree of gender equality.

The SNP has put all its gender equality eggs in this basket and zipping is the only mechanism on offer. It has the support of the party hierarchy, including leader Alex Salmond, but there are vociferous opponents.

These include Young Scots for Independence, the youth wing of the party, whose executive has been bitterly opposed to zipping and all other positive discriminatory measures. ''It would have been very easy for the YSI to take the politically correct line of encouraging various forms of positive discrimination, but we believe that discrimination is wrong,'' said vice-president George Adam.

But Hilary Brown of the SNP Women's Forum said: ''I am very much looking forward to the debate and I hope the conference will adopt the zipping system as the only measure being considered for achieving the party's stated policy of achieving a measure of gender equality in the new Parliament. There is no other option on the table.''