Scotland’s seas are renowned for their rich biodiversity. From fish to birds, marine mammals to invertebrates, they are home to thousands of fantastic species of plants and animals. They are loved by communities, are a key component of Scotland’s cultural heritage and identity, as well as a vital resource for those who rely on marine industries like fishing and wildlife tourism.
But scientific evidence makes it clear that Scotland’s marine environment has been in decline for some time. Most of our seabed is in poor condition, with some vital habitats, like seagrass and flame shell beds, covering just a tiny fraction of their former areas. Seabird species are also in steep decline. The overall abundance of 11 seabird species in Scotland went down by a significant average of 49% since 1986, putting Scotland’s seabird health now below the rest of the UK.
We all want our seas to thrive and be resilient in the face of the intertwined climate and nature crises. The livelihood and wellbeing of coastal communities depends on a healthy marine environment. Preserving Scotland’s marine ecosystems, helping them recover, and safeguarding them for future generations is therefore a crucial task. Maintaining and enhancing Scotland’s marine environment is also an obligation under both our international commitments and domestic law.[1]
Image: Fanny Royanez
What are marine protected areas, and why do they matter?
Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are designated zones within the ocean set aside for long-term conservation objectives. They come in various forms worldwide, each offering different levels of protection and management strategies.
Scientific evidence from across the globe shows that MPAs are a proven tool to halt and reverse the decline of biodiversity, such as Fish Replenishment Areas in Hawai’i, as well as fighting climate change, such as measures detailed in the Great Barrier Reef Blueprint for Climate Resilience and Adaptation. When thoughtfully planned with marine communities, and effectively managed, MPAs become essential in addressing our impact on the marine environment. They can help marine species and habitats to recover, and safeguard established ecosystems from further degradation.
MPAs are a long-term investment. They work to ensure that the species and habitats that make up our complex marine ecosystems are adequately protected, so that future generations can continue to benefit from what our seas provide us with – commercial fish and shellfish, renewable sources of energy, climate regulation, natural coastal defence, and enjoyment, recreation and increased wellbeing across society.
However, designating a site as an MPA does not automatically mean it is protected[2]. Those responsible for MPAs must assess what changes to human activities might be needed within the site to reduce pressure on vulnerable species and habitats and give them the best possible chance to thrive. This might mean some activities have to be restricted or reduced in certain areas, at certain times of the year, or, in the case of higher risk activities, on a permanent basis. The Great Barrier Reef Zoning Plan is considered a successful example of where there is a mixed management approach that supports multiple human uses of the area. The success of a MPA in achieving its conservation goals is highly dependent on the management measures implemented to protect the site.
Scotland’s marine protected areas: management measures are eight years overdue
Image: Ben Andrew
The Marine (Scotland) Act 2010 sets out a duty for Scottish Ministers to protect and enhance the marine environment. Both the Marine and Coastal Access Act (2009) and the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010 provide the Scottish government with the power and duty to create a network of MPAs.
In 2014, 30 nature conservation MPAs were created with the objective of helping protect nationally important species and habitats – Priority Marine Features (PMFs). Designating the sites was only the first step, as management measures to restrict certain marine activities including commercial fishing were to be delivered by 2016.
Fisheries restrictions were adopted in a handful of inshore MPAs (within 12 nautical miles of the coast) in 2016, but the deadline to implement restrictions across the whole network by 2016 was missed. The measures that have been introduced in the most vulnerable inshore sites prohibit damaging fishing methods in less than 1% of the historically fished inshore area[3]. A subsequent deadline of 2020 was also missed. A commitment from the Scottish government in the 2021 Bute House Agreement to complete the MPA network and deliver the long-awaited management measures by 2024 has also not been met, leaving our MPAs without real protection from the most damaging forms of fishing. Repeatedly missing these deadlines put at risk the Scottish Government’s ambition to halt biodiversity loss by 2030.
It’s important to note here that these measures are not related to the proposals for ‘Highly Protected Marine Areas’ (HPMAs) that were mooted by the Scottish government in 2021 and consulted on in 2023. The appropriate management of our MPA network has been on the table for 10 years and has been subject to extensive discussion with stakeholders and local communities. HPMAs, as consulted in 2023, will not be progressed by the Scottish Government (although areas of consensus amongst stakeholders were identified during the consultation which will be helpful for future developments.
The Scottish government’s own data has repeatedly underscored the urgent need to implement management measures for the most damaging forms of fishing. Most recently, its Scottish Marine Assessment 2020 identified fishing activities that sweep across large sections of the seabed (‘bottom-towed mobile’ fishing) and ‘pelagic fishing’ (which refers to the water area between the surface and seabed) as the key pressures facing marine biodiversity, alongside climate change. Yet these forms of fishing are allowed to continue in all but a few of our MPAs.
In short, despite covering 37% of Scotland’s seas, the majority of the MPA network continues to exist in name only without real protection implemented. While fisheries restrictions are delayed, our marine ecosystems, especially seabed habitats, will continue to decline.
Image: NatureScot
Restrictions tailored to species and habitats
NatureScot provided advice to the Scottish government in 2014 on what types of fishing activities would need to be removed or limited in each MPA in order for the relevant species and habitats to be properly protected. The measures would vary for each site and be tailored based on risk to adequately protect the marine wildlife the sites contain. Depending on the MPA, the measures would mean restricting certain types of fishing, but allowing others that have little or no impact on the species and habitats identified.
The Scottish government ran a series of consultations and workshops with marine users and industries to consult on and deliver the management measures. Its proposals were confined to protecting small areas of priority species and habitats that remained in good condition despite decades of industrial activity. Scottish Environment LINK called for a more holistic approach to these management proposals, taking into account how the priority species and habitats are connected as part of the ecosystem, rather than just considering them on their own.
Today, the Scottish MPA network is composed of 233 sites designated for nature conservation purposes. But 10 years after their creation, only a minority of sites have fisheries management measures in place.
This cannot go on. The Scottish government must end the delays and act now to take this crucial step in helping our seas recover.
More is needed to help our seas recover
Delivering an effective network of MPAs is the bare minimum if Scotland wants to halt and reverse the decline of our marine biodiversity. Without these tailored management measures, MPAs cannot reach their conservation objectives.
However, the Scottish government’s approach through MPAs is confined to protecting the small areas of our seas that remain in good condition. If we are to help our seas recover, implementing MPA management measures is only the first step.
MPAs must be part of a broader ecosystem-based approach to tackle the ocean emergency effectively. Urgent action across policy areas is needed to facilitate species and habitat recovery and ensure that marine ecosystems can function. This means implementing a more holistic approach to the management of fisheries, establishing a new national marine plan centred on ocean recovery, and addressing cumulative impacts on the marine environment.
It is urgent we ensure our marine ecosystems can provide the life-sustaining benefits that our marine industries and coastal communities rely on, for generations to come.
By Fanny Royanez, Marine Policy and Engagement Officer
[1] Scotland is obligated to maintain and enhance its marine environment under international commitments such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), OSPAR Northeast Atlantic strategy, and delivering on the UN Sustainable Development Goals. It is also a legal requirement under national legislation such as the UK Marine Strategy Regulations, the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010, and the Nature Conservation (Scotland) Act 2004.
[2] Langton, R., Stirling, D.A., Boulcott, P. and Wright, P.J., 2020. Are MPAs effective in removing fishing pressure from benthic species and habitats?. Biological Conservation, 247, p.108511.
[3]Langton, R., Stirling, D.A., Boulcott, P. and Wright, P.J., 2020. Are MPAs effective in removing fishing pressure from benthic species and habitats?. Biological Conservation, 247, p.108511
Every year LINK’s annual Congress for our members tackles a key and current issue for the network. This year, we invited Community Land Scotland (CLS) and Coastal Communities Network (CCN) along to help us discuss how we, as communities of interest, can work with communities of place, to achieve our shared visions of healthy ecosystems with vibrant communities across all of Scotland. Our idea was to look at the way we work, learn from some of our members and from our colleagues in CLS and CCN.
This has been an informative year and we’ve had to learn a few lessons. Although 55% of those who responded to the consultation on Highly Protected Marine Areas (HPMAs) were supportive, what happened during the consultation was pretty devastating. This is because the science tells us that the protection of species and habitats is the cornerstone of future healthy ecosystems. The public support this, showing in a recent poll that 80% of those asked would support Scotland’s Marine Protected Areas being fully or highly protected. The Scottish Government and Ministers were putting forward a mechanism to help Scotland work towards the Global Biodiversity Framework target of 30% effective conservation areas at sea, and the Bute House Agreement included commitment to establish HPMAs in at least 10% of Scotland’s seas. But the consultation took us back to the drawing board.
Why did this happen? A fundamental element to this was that without a communication plan, supported by case studies of success, negative, frightening and false stories began to dominate. Another important element is that we are all suffering consultation overload, Government included, and as a result consultations are often rushed and not sufficiently thought through. A capacity crunch is affecting us all: Scottish Government, eNGOs and local communities. Witnessing this is what led us to our Congress theme: with the nature and climate emergencies, we cannot afford to let this happen again. We realised we need to revisit how we communicate hope, positive action and benefits for future generations.
In addressing the nature and climate crisis, there are a number of outcomes we urgently need to progress: effective measures at sea to protect and restore our remaining biodiversity, effective protection on land and halting perverse subsidies and actions that take us backwards on land and at sea. We need instead agricultural subsidies and forestry grant schemes that deliver for nature and climate and not against them, land reform, upland management and licensing that protects vulnerable upland ecosystems and increases their resilience to ongoing change.
But to reach these outcomes, we need a new approach that involves everyone to build irresistible change. We need to work with and support our own members who are already effectively engaging at local levels and we need to work with other networks, who are the communities on the ground and with whom we can pool resources in order to reach mutual goals on climate and nature action. Learning from those successes and finding new collaborations and activities will help us create a much bigger and more engaged public space where politicians and policy makers have no option but to listen to the science, the experts, the communities and young people who all want to see change.
Using the experience of 3 member bodies: John Muir Trust, Scottish Wildlife Trust and the Common Ground Forum initiative, which is supported by a number of LINK members, we heard examples of successful ways of engaging with local communities. The lessons they learnt and the successes they shared are all now forming part of our next steps.
There are some processes we can engage in together: What are called ‘place based’ responses: how can we help our communities see ourselves in the changes we need to see? And a Just Transition: how can we help build a socially just move to the necessary environmental transition?
In terms of how we do that, we came up with a few actions for us all to consider and deliver:
Public support for cross and inter networks’ priorities and projects
Building joint projects together
A whole of Scotland approach: there is a false narrative of urban vs rural emerging. We are in a strong position to prove that wrong with our network reach right across Scotland
Adopting the concept of Duthchas, where natural, cultural and community regeneration exist side by side.
There are some challenges in trying to do this. Environmental and social regeneration is suffering a lack of housing and inadequate transport. In tackling the climate and nature crisis, we have to tackle these too, which means we need to support those working in these areas. We need to meet the expectations of communities when communities of all sorts step up the challenge. We need to work out how to support them too at a time when public resources are extremely tight. There are also going to be more difficult conversations needed and in order to do that constructively we need to equip our staff so they are able to cope with stressful situations and difficult behaviours. And finally we need to recognise that in our communities, democratic decision making, which is the basis of all our work, will create tensions that we need to recognise and resolve.
LINK’s role in all this starts with our public positions on key issues around land and sea management, land reform and natural finance for example and around sharing and adopting best practice. We will be developing some joint projects including piloting and demonstrating the art of the possible in change at scale on land and on the coast. We are looking to build on the success of the Common Ground Forum to bring a new approach within our communities on the coast. We will manage our own priorities to ensure we have sufficient capacity and resource to take on this work and we will look at how we can lead the conversations around change at scale that benefits us all, wherever we live and whatever we do.
Communities togetherin action.
By Deborah Long, Chief Officer, Scottish Environment LINK
This piece was originally published in The Scotsman.
Scotland trades on its environment with images of misty mountains, soaring eagles, heather moors, wooded glens, and clear waters turned into golden whisky. The Scottish Government even says that it “aspire(s) to be the greenest country in the world”.
But Scotland’s natural environment faces enormous challenges. The condition of Scotland’s nationally protected nature sites is now worse than in 2018, and wildlife numbers on land and at sea have declined by over 30% in the past quarter century. The Chair of NatureScot has recently said that Scotland is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world.
Ministers plan to set legal targets to reverse these trends, and have set out their plan of action in a new Biodiversity Strategy. This is of course hugely welcome. But there’s a catch.
Setting a target to restore nature is easy – but how do you know that you’ve met it? Well, you need to establish a baseline of what our natural environment looks like today. Then, where you can see that a habitat is declining, or a river is polluted, you take action to improve it. Then, by measuring conditions against that baseline, you can tell if things have improved.
This should be the bread and butter of our environmental agencies, NatureScot and SEPA. But since 2010 both agencies have had massive real-terms cuts, of 40% and 26% respectively. The publicly-funded environmental research budget, which provides the science, data and evidence, needed by these agencies to do their job effectively, has suffered even worse and been cut by 55% over the same period. Managers end up spending their time on cost-cutting rather than environmental protection.
Should we be surprised, then, that monitoring of our environment is so patchy? That too many of our protected areas are in poor condition? That water quality targets have consistently been missed, despite being revised downwards? In 2009, just 61.3% of Scotland’s rivers and freshwater lochs were in good or better condition, and that had only edged up to 64.2% by 2020. For our surrounding seas, there are apparently “insufficient data to allow detailed assessment”.
Scotland’s terrestrial environment is treasured for its own sake but it has also been valued as worth £250Bn. Sadly, considering its dire state, that valuation has remained unchanged over the past 15 years. A revealing comparison is that the annual insurance cost of a building is reckoned to be about 0.08% of its asset value so you might expect Government to provide £200M per year insuring Scotland’s environment, or in practice funding its environment agencies. But they jointly receive only £110M, that’s less than 60% of what might reasonably be expected.
The Biodiversity Minister Lorna Slater has said “the Scottish Government is clear that this is an emergency that requires an emergency response“.
Despite pledges to maintain or exceed European environmental standards, Scotland is spending less than our neighbours on the environment as a proportion of the size of our economy.
Total spending on environmental services comes to around 0.6% of Scotland’s GDP, only 80% of the European average, and less than half of the Netherlands, in caring for our precious environment.
Whichever way you look at it, Scotland is short-changing its environment, as well as the businesses which depend on it, while undermining one of our greatest assets and jeopardising the future of all who live here. The imminent Scottish Government budget can change all that.
Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels has released the results of its fifth annual Great Scottish Squirrel Survey, revealing that 2023 public participation was the second highest since its inception, beating all previous years, bar the record-breaking pandemic lockdown year of 2020.
According to the survey, which was conducted between the 2nd and 8th of October and asked for the Scottish public to spot and record all grey and red squirrels, a total of 1334 people took part, reporting just under 2000 red and grey squirrel sightings across the country, almost 2.5 times as many as were reporting during the 2022 survey. These sightings provide invaluable data for conservationists and scientists working on the ground to protect the endangered native red squirrel.
Programme Manager Nicole Still said:
“This is an outstanding increase and fantastic result for red squirrels in Scotland. Every single sighting submitted on our website helps us to understand population distributions across the country and take targeted action to protect red squirrels from their greatest threat, the invasive non-native grey squirrel. We are thrilled to see sightings coming in from all over Scotland, and many hundreds of people responding to our call to take part in this mass citizen science event. We’d like to thank everybody who got involved, we couldn’t carry out our vital red squirrel conservation activities without the invaluable data gathered from the survey.”
Mapping of the records confirms that the Highlands of Scotland remain a safe haven for red squirrels and free from greys thanks to the hard work of staff, landowners, partner organisations and volunteers working along the geographical diagonal Highland Boundary Fault Line to stop grey incursion northwards. The results of the survey also reflect the significant success of efforts in Aberdeen over recent years, with only very small numbers reported from the city and its outskirts. In the South of Scotland a mix of the two species remain, with volunteer groups working hard to lower grey densities in the region.
Grey squirrels were introduced to Scotland in Victorian times and have since replaced the native red squirrel in many parts of the country. They out-compete reds for food and living space and can also carry squirrelpox, a virus that doesn’t harm them but is fatal to reds.
Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels is a partnership project led by the Scottish Wildlife Trust and supported by the Scottish Government and The National Lottery Heritage Fund, thanks to National Lottery players, along with other partners.
Environmental organisations in the UK recently wrote to the Prime Minister expressing concerns about how the Internal Market Act (IMA), passed in 2020 after Brexit, is negatively impacting environmental policymaking.
The letter was coordinated by APRS in the aftermath of the IMA being used to block Scotland’s deposit return system, with key support from the LINK organisations in Wales, Scotland and England.
This has been quite a challenge for me to get my head around, given the dry and rather arcane subject matter, but it is vital for anyone who cares about good environmental policy to understand the threat the IMA poses to our work in the environment movement.
I hope this blog helps, along with the videos we have produced, with Reloop, on the basics of the IMA.
Any policy that will affect goods and services at the point of sale needs an exemption to the IMA – this obviously affected deposit return but it would also affect such policy measures as single unit pricing, phase out of petrol/diesel cars, ban of disposable vapes, a ban on sale of snares and many other things.
Particularly importantly, especially for environmental campaigners, is that, before Brexit, the EU single market rules allowed for exemptions for environmental and public health policies. There is no such exemption under the IMA.
As Deborah Long, Chief Officer of Scottish Environment Link, said in the press release:
“We have already seen one direct effect of the Internal Market Act, when it was used by UK Ministers to impose serious restrictions on the Scottish deposit return system, legislation which was previously accepted as fully devolved to Scotland. Such a move would not have been possible prior to Brexit, given the exemptions available for environmental and public health policy within the EU single market rules.
“Unless these elements are amended or repealed, it seems likely that this scenario will repeat itself. Devolution has worked as a proving ground for positive policy measures, but without those changes, we will be left with a race to the bottom on environmental and public health standards.”
Prior to Brexit, devolution allowed Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to pioneer new policies which were then picked up across the UK. The most famous examples are the carrier bag charge (initiated in Wales and then adopted across the UK) and the ban on smoking in public places (initiated in Scotland and then similarly adopted across the UK). That pipeline of innovation has now been stifled, as the collapse of the Scottish deposit return system shows, and it is not an exaggeration to say that devolution itself is in jeopardy as far as environmental policy goes.
The first principle of devolution is that anything not reserved to Westminster in the relevant legislation is for the devolved institutions to legislate on. The Internal Market Act undermines that principle and has added uncertainty for institutions and businesses on what can actually be legislated.
Our aim, alongside the LINKs, is to raise awareness of the impacts of the IMA on environmental policy-making and ensure that the manifestos of the political parties for the next UK General election contain plans to amend it.
With this in mind we have, in addition to the letter to the PM, written to leaders from all the UK political parties, in UK and developed nations, sent a copy of the letter, and requested to meet.
APRS and Reloop produced a series of video explainers on what the IMA means for policymaking.
The open letter highlights that:
the Act has led to significant hurdles to progress on environmental issues, and added bureaucratic overheads to policy-making in every part of the UK;
it undermines the ability of the Scottish and Welsh institutions, and Northern Irish, as and when the current suspension ends, to operate in areas which were clearly devolved, as with deposit return;
the timescale for devolved institutions to begin the formal process that can lead to an exemption is unclear – in particular, does it begin before or after the Scottish Parliament or Senedd passes relevant legislation?
the way the Act is structured means that devolved institutions do not have certainty about policy-making even when Ministers at all levels believe an exemption is not required: third parties, like businesses, could still launch challenges under it; and
provisions made prior to the passage of the Act are protected (such as minimum unit pricing), but changes to those provisions are only protected if they are not “substantive”, a term which is not properly defined.
By Deborah Long, Chief Officer at Scottish Environment LINK
Scotland is renowned across the world for its landscapes, seas and wildlife. Despite that reputation, we are 28th from the bottom of countries in terms of the health of our biodiversity, as measured by the Biodiversity Intactness Index. Scotland’s wildlife is not doing well. If we want to continue seeing our wildlife spectacles, we need to act to halt the loss of nature and restore it. That way we can continue to enjoy it and pass it on to future generations.
This is why the new Natural Environment Bill, out for consultation from 7 September, is so important. It tackles a host of areas that with effective legislation in place, would make a serious and sustained positive contribution to Scotland’s ambitions to halt nature loss and restore it. It builds on the Scottish Biodiversity Strategy to 2045: tackling the nature emergency, which was published in draft in December 2022. In that, Scottish Environment LINK and our members welcomed the ambition for Scotland to be nature positive by 2030 and to have restored and regenerated biodiversity across the country by 2045.
Leading the Edinburgh Declaration at COP15 in December 2022, the Scottish Government helped formalise the role of all levels of government in meeting the Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. As such, Scotland committed to set national targets to implement the framework, which itself sets out how we will reach the global vision of a world living in harmony with nature by 2050.
This leadership role, appropriate in a country renowned for its wildlife, is now being delivered through the proposed Natural Environment Bill. The consultation includes plans to introduce legal targets for nature restoration as well as the details of the first delivery plan for the Scottish Biodiversity Strategy.
Setting targets is important. It’s a way to measure progress towards the goal of halting the loss of nature and restoring it. Targets also help us understand better how much we completely rely on the natural world and the enormous risks to our future if we do not act. On 30 August we published our report on what the nature targets should look like and what they should aim to achieve. We have been clear that the targets must have a clear end date and milestones to measure progress towards that date, be focused on reversing current negative trends and on effective restoration of biodiversity to ecological health. They need to be measurable, achievable and realistic. What they will do, if they are all of those things, is help to focus our efforts and resources on effective action.
These targets also provide a helpful measure to sit alongside Scotland’s climate targets. Without them, we teeter on the edge of supporting action that meets climate targets but trashes biodiversity. Having both sets of targets lays this risk clear. Planting, for example, sitka across vast areas, does not meet biodiversity targets and in the wrong place, without nature networks, hinders it. Creating native woodland however, meets both climate and biodiversity targets.
The actions required to meet these targets is embedded in the Biodiversity Strategy and its delivery plans. These plans are also out for consultation and aim to provide the framework for focussed, effective action. They aim to accelerate the pace and scale of actions to halt the loss of biodiversity. Produced every 5 years, these plans will evolve as species and habitats move and recover so that by 2045, we are able to show what we’ve achieved and how nature has benefitted. Some examples that we will be looking for in this consultation include:
A national programme for ecosystem restoration: we warmly welcomed the commitment in the draft biodiversity strategy to a national programme of ecosystem restoration. Coordinated and delivered at ecosystem level, not land use level, will, we believe, enable Scotland to deliver effective action at scale.
A national programme for species recovery: we believe this is needed to sit alongside the programme for ecosystem recovery. It is not necessarily true that action at ecosystem level will automatically benefit all threatened species. Using NatureScot’s Species at Risk initiative to underpin this programme will be helpful.
For effectiveness, all proposed actions must be specific, measurable, achievable, relevent and have clear timescales.
Scotland’s Protected Areas are important and require specific action to help them deliver for threatened species and habitats. Our 30×30 report describes how to conserve nature in our wider land and seas. We are also looking for commitments in the delivery plans to improve Scotland’s protected areas on land and at sea so they are able to protect and restore species and habitats.
The marine environment is crucial for climate and nature action. We will be looking for marine actions to be effectively embedded alongside actions on land and at the coast. They need to be effective at scale and tackle the key pressures and drivers of change in Scotland’s marine habitats: the impact of climate change, fisheries and pollution.
We have high hopes for the targets and plans outlined in this consultation. LINK and our members are fully committed to continuing to do everything we can to restore Scotland’s environment for future generations. We will be playing our part fully, with conviction and encouraging and enabling others to do their bit too.
This is part of our work towards our vision that:
Scotland’s environment is connected | restored | resilient |
Our society and well being have nature at their heart, benefiting people, communities and the planet
As Scottish Environment LINK’s Nature Champions initiative celebrates its tenth year, Nature Champions Coordinator, Andy Marks, highlights its value in galvanising political support for Scotland’s threatened and iconic species and habitats.
It is incredibly heartening to catch Members of the Scottish Parliament discussing which species and habitats they are championing as part of the Nature Champions initiative. The light-hearted pride with which some MSPs announce the name of their species or habitat is very encouraging to hear, particularly when so few species and habitats have historically been recognised and valued in public life.
There were many exchanges of this kind at last week’s formal launch of the public exhibition, A Voice for Nature: 10 Years of Nature Champions. The free exhibition, which is located outside the front of the Scottish Parliament until 22nd September, highlights how past and present MSPs have been working as Nature Champions over the past decade to be a voice for nature in the Scottish Parliament.
For those unfamiliar with the initiative, Nature Champions works on a simple premise: each MSP champions a threatened or iconic Scottish species or habitat for the duration of that Parliamentary session. By becoming a Nature Champion, MSPs from all political parties work alongside Scottish Environment LINK members to champion their chosen species or habitats. Scottish Environment LINK members support MSPs by raising awareness of the threats the different species and habitats are facing, as well as the political action needed to halt or reverse these declines.
On a more individual level, part of the beauty and importance of the initiative is also its ability to foster unanticipated connections between our elected representatives and our natural environment. From attending site visits to see their species or habitats in situ, to meeting passionate members of their constituencies, the initiative helps to emphasise the value of Scotland’s species and habitats at a time of unprecedented decline in global biodiversity.
As the 2019 IPBES Global Assessment for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services report has described, the causes of biodiversity decline can be understood as falling into two categories: those so-called ‘direct’ drivers of global biodiversity loss including climate change, pollution, invasive non-native species, direct exploitation of organisms and changing use of lands and sea, and those ‘indirect’ drivers of biodiversity loss, namely, a cultural lack of value and recognition of the importance of nature, and a societal disconnect with nature. In Scotland, as with the rest of the world, these indirect drivers of biodiversity loss need to be addressed to prevent further biodiversity loss. In other words, to halt the ongoing decline of Scotland’s biodiversity (Scotland ranks in the lowest 15% of countries in terms of its biodiversity intactness) we must transform those values and behaviours that have led us here, and not just the immediate symptoms of an unsustainable culture.
In this vein, the Nature Champions initiative not only brings the direct drivers of biodiversity loss in Scotland to the attention of MSPs, particularly those that immediately affect their chosen species or habitat, but it also helps to transform the perceptions of MSPs towards different species and habitats, including those so-called ‘uncharismatic’ species or habitats: our ecologically vital leeches, lichens, molluscs and bogs, for example. Through learning more about their species or habitats, seeing them in person and meeting the people who rely upon and care for them, Nature Champions develop on-the-ground (or under-the-water!) relationships with Scotland’s wildlife. These connections are of the upmost importance if we are to successfully tackle the indirect drivers of biodiversity loss and ‘mainstream biodiversity into all areas of policy’, as recommended by the Scottish Parliament’s 2022 SPICe Spotlight report, Governing Nature – Halting Biodiversity Loss.
The initiative has been a huge success over the past ten years, with over 175 different MSPs becoming Nature Champions, and similar programmes taking off in Wales, Northern Ireland and England, as well as within schools, community groups and local authorities.
Since 2013, Scotland’s Nature Champions alone have lodged over 200 Parliamentary Motions and Questions in support of their species or habitats and discussed their roles in 17 Parliamentary Debates on the natural environment. They have also taken part in hundreds of site visits and constituency activities, many of which are featured in A Voice for Nature at the Scottish Parliament. These visits have included boat trips to Scotland’s rainforest to see mature oak woodlands, snorkeling with local residents in sea lochs to discover important flame shell beds, or even night walks around Holyrood Park to search for native bat species. Each of these encounters between a Nature Champion and their species or habitat has moved us a step closer towards meaningfully considering their interests in policymaking.
As we look to the future of Nature Champions, we hope that even more MSPs will take up the opportunity to become Nature Champions. At present, iconic and threatened species and habitats including the Black Grouse, Coastal Sand Dunes and Common Glow-worm, to name a few, remain without representation in the Scottish Parliament. With continued political buy-in, we hope to support Members of the Scottish Parliament to learn more about the extraordinary species and habitats that we live alongside, thereby encouraging the necessary revaluing of our natural environment as a key political priority for our future.
A Voice for Nature will be located outside the main entrance of the Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh, until Friday 22nd September. You can find out more about the exhibition, as well as all the audio clips and transcripts featured in the exhibition, on our website.
By Deborah Long, Chief Officer at Scottish Environment LINK. Originally published by the National.
HOW often do you think about nature? For many, the natural world is somewhere for relaxation or enjoyment – the place we go to disconnect, to get dirt underneath our fingertips, or to feel sun on our backs or cold water on our ankles.
But how often do you really think about nature, and how dependent we are upon it? The food on our plates, the clean air that we breathe, even the unspoken confidence that the river upstream will not flood our home – these are all aspects of our daily lives that are dependent on a healthy natural environment. And, sadly, nature is in decline.
The climate crisis is the most obvious example of the environmental challenges we face. The shocking impacts of wildfires and extreme weather we’ve witnessed globally this summer alone show how urgent it is that we rapidly reduce emissions.
But reducing emissions is only one part of the picture. The reason why climate change is such an enormous threat is that it disrupts our natural ecological processes – crops struggle to grow; habitats and ecosystems are lost or damaged; and extreme events including fires, droughts, and floods become increasingly common.
While nature is threatened by climate change it is also our first line of defence. Our forests and peatlands have an incredible capacity to lock up carbon, and a healthier natural environment can help us adapt to the warming that is already happening. But our failure to protect nature is undermining its capacity to help us.
Biodiversity – the abundance and genetic diversity of all life on Earth, from iconic large mammals to the microscopic life in our soils – is key to our collective health and wellbeing. But the way we manage our land, seas and natural resources is driving a shocking decline in the state of our natural environment.
The Scottish Government will shortly publish its delivery plan to stop and reverse our collapse in biodiversity. This will come at the same time as a consultation on the upcoming Natural Environment Bill, which will introduce legal targets for nature restoration – finally giving biodiversity the same legal standing as the climate.
Meeting these ambitions will be challenging but achievable. There are actions we can take that we know will work, such as reducing deer numbers to allow our native woodlands to regenerate naturally.
Protecting more of our land for nature will provide bigger areas of natural habitats for species to move across and to create conditions that species can move into.
Our farm funding system can be made fairer for farmers and crofters while supporting them to adopt nature- and climate-friendly methods of food production. The solutions are on the table and it is up to our political leaders to have the vision to champion them.
Earlier this month the leaders of Scotland’s nature charities wrote to all Scottish party leaders calling for renewed commitment to tackle the climate and nature crises.
We hope that the imminent publication of the Biodiversity Framework marks the start of a more consensual approach to environmental policymaking and the resumption of the cross-party consensus that has driven previous successes, such as our climate targets.
Both government and opposition parties in Scotland have a moral responsibility to take these crises seriously, to offer ambitious solutions and constructive challenges, and to work in partnership in our long-term interest. Without that, not only will Scotland’s environment, our landscapes, our seas and our wildlife suffer, but so will Scotland’s communities, our people and our economy.
The old saying goes that the best time to plant a tree was yesterday, the next-best time is today. The same is true for action on climate and nature – we have understood these challenges for a long time but yesterday’s failures must not stop us from acting now.
The faster we can restore nature, connect up habitats, and halt unsustainable use of natural resources, the sooner our environment can start to mend and the better chances we, and our children, will have in the future.
The Scottish Government brought forward its long awaited Circular Economy Bill towards the end of June. This bill was one of the pieces of legislation thwarted by COVID 19, so is somewhat overdue.
It is important to remember that the Circular Economy Bill only contains measures which need legislation. Much of what the Government plans to do with regard to making our economy more circular doesn’t require legislation and will be laid out in a separate policy document (here is the draft route map which was consulted on).
Another thing to bear in mind is that most of the provisions in the Bill give the Scottish Government powers to bring in new measures, but the details of those measures will be laid out in future secondary legislation.
LINK members working on circular economy are generally supportive of the measures in the Bill. That said, we would like to see some of them tightened up and we are discussing our priorities for additional measures we would like to see included. For example, we are pleased that the Bill includes the powers to set consumption targets and the duty to publish a Circular Economy Strategy, to be updated every 5 years. However, the wording leaves the setting of targets as optional (whereas they need to be an obligation) and a rather weak requirement for Scottish Government ‘to have regard to’ the Circular Economy Strategy in making policies (‘in accordance with’ makes it stronger). We will be highlighting weaknesses like these to the Committee and suggesting improvements.
The Bill also contains a number of other measures and the Committee is seeking views on five of these – they are keen to hear from as many people as possible:
Additional charges for single use items. We think it is a good idea to give Scottish Government the powers to do this, with the intention that it would lead to the reduction in consumption of single use and encourage re use. It should only be brought in for items for which a reusable alternative is readily available and a practical option.
New measures around household waste, creating a penalty for householders who do not comply with existing responsibilities. We think this is a good idea to help reduce flytipping and reduce contamination of recycling; but we strongly believe that it must only be brought in once everyone has access to clearly labelled and easily accessible recycling facilities.
Recycling targets for local authorities. We think this is a good idea as there is currently a huge discrepancy between recycling rates achieved by different local authorities. Targets need to be set with the distinctive features of the areas covered by different local authorities in mind; and local authorities need to be properly resourced to enable them to meet the targets.
Restriction on the disposal of unsold goods. We think this is a good idea and hope that it will be applied as comprehensively as possible.
Fines for littering from a vehicle. We think this is a good idea as a disincentive to littering from vehicles.
Providing your view only takes a few minutes – you can give each measure a ‘thumbs up’ or ‘thumbs down’ with the option to leave comments as well.
LINK will be submitting detailed evidence to the Committee – as mentioned above – which we are currently working on. If you have any questions or want to know more, please get in touch with phoebe@scotlink.org.
Last month (July 2023) the Scottish Government released their Vision for Sustainable Aquaculture, setting out its plans for how the industry should develop all the way to 2045. Aquaculture in Scotland is big business, adding £885 million to the economy in 2018. It is dominated by salmon farming which produced 205,393 tonnes of farmed Atlantic salmon in 2021. In fact, Sottish salmon is not just Scotland’s, but the UK’s, largest food export. This is the first time the Scottish Government has set out a vision for the industry and it is an ambitious one. Balancing recognition of benefits that aquaculture can provide and encouraging its continued development, whilst simultaneously understanding the need of the industry to work within environmental limits, protect sensitive habitats, and in some cases, actively restore them.
The Vision is not itself a new policy, but instead guides policy development and sets a number of goals and outcomes that everyone should work towards achieving. It was developed with Scotland’s legally binding 5 guiding principles of the environment in mind, effectively ensuring that protecting the environment is equally considered in the agenda alongside economic and social considerations.
Scottish Environment LINK were invited to take a seat on Scotland’s Aquaculture Council and welcomed the opportunity to help shape the Vision and advise on areas where we felt protection for the environment did not go far enough. We were very pleased to see many of these recommendations being included in the Vision, such as committing to information on the regulatory performance of aquaculture being made publicly available, and the principle that unsuitable aquaculture sites can be designated aquaculture-free zones rather than automatically passed on for redevelopment. In particular the Vision’s overall focus on Environment as one of the three key themes is welcomed.
The Scottish Aquaculture Council is a great opportunity for collaboration between government, industry, NGOs, scientists and other stakeholders to meet and outline their shared ambitions for the future of aquaculture. A key area acknowledged within the Vision is the need for better data collection and use. This means working more collaboratively, sharing information to understand best practices, using the precautionary principle when we do not have all of the answers and creating a more holistic, adaptive regulatory system for the industry that considers the cumulative impact of all activity within an ecosystem.
But now the hard work begins. There are some bold, and in our opinion, long overdue commitments in the new vision that we want to see come to fruition, it will require the focus and dedication of everyone involved. We would like to see the Vision’s aims reflected in constructive workplans with definitive timelines as soon as possible. We would also like to see the Scottish Government’s approach of multi-stakeholder engagement continued alongside this, with greater inclusion of local community representation. Scottish Environment LINK will continue to use our role on the Scottish Aquaculture Council to advocate for the environment, ensure that the commitments within the Vision are implemented in a timely manner and that progress on these commitments are being measured and achieved.
By Sarah Evans, Aquaculture Policy Officer for the Marine Conservation Society
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