Measuring biodiversity: research into approaches

Conclusions: Sense checking workshop

While requirements of a tool will differ across sectors, stakeholder workshops conducted as part of this project highlight some common ground. All sectors prioritised a tool that is meaningful to all sectors and that provides a clear, concise and transparent means of accounting for biodiversity. Stakeholders also put value on a tool that is scientifically robust and comparable across habitats and sectors.

The workshop highlighted the need for a standardised framework to account for biodiversity, with this need being particularly urgent for the Planning and Development sector. The urgency for a Scottish metric must, however, be balanced with a requirement to ensure that the metric is fit for purpose across Scotland. While it is recognised that perfection is not required from the onset, it is recognised that launching a metric with fundamental flaws could alienate stakeholders, reducing uptake. Flexibility and adaptability could provide key strengths in a Scottish metric, particularly given the breadth of environmental conditions experienced in Scotland. However, with greater flexibility comes the potential for abuse and an increased workload associated with the need to validate any changes made.

To optimise the impacts, consideration should be given to expanding beyond the site level to consider landscape structure and configuration. Enhancing landscape diversity and ecological connectivity is key to ensuring positive effects on biodiversity, and long-term monitoring will be critical to verify impacts and guarantee extended legacy. Furthermore, adopting a landscape approach can help to ensure actions are spatially targeted to optimise not just biodiversity outcomes but promote multi-functional land use. Consideration should be given to identify how ecosystem service markets can be integrated and governed to supporting multi-functionality whilst ensuring additionality.

All sectors prioritised the need for biodiversity metrics to be clear, concise and transparent and adopting a standardised framework to biodiversity accounting would ensure consistency and comparability across sectors. It is however recognised that different sectors require different things from a metric with respect to ecological expertise, complexity and level of detail. Consequently, while a standardised framework is beneficial, a single metric is unlikely to be the best way to achieve this. A single tool is unlikely to meet the demands of all sectors and stakeholders expressed concerns that this will result in an oversimplified metric which does not accurately reflect biodiversity or ecosystem health. Thus, it is proposed that a suite of tools tailored to the needs of different sectors is preferable. These tools should, however, be underpinned by a common framework to ensure that the outcomes are comparable, and to facilitate cross-sector trading.