Scottish biodiversity strategy post-2020: statement of intent

How We Use Our Land

Scotland's land delivers multiple benefits to people, providing homes and water supplies, producing food, timber and space for leisure, as well as supporting biodiversity. Our Climate Change Plan update will reflect the importance of land use, land use change, peatland restoration and forestry as key elements of our approach to tackling climate change.

Through Peatland ACTION – a NatureScot programme funded by the Scottish Government and involving our national parks and Forestry and Land Scotland as delivery partners – around 26,000 hectares of damaged peatland have been put on the road to recovery since 2012, with another 200,000 hectares being considered for restoration. Over that period, the Scottish Government has provided over £50 million for peatland restoration, a fantastic example of how nature can help us address the climate emergency, support biodiversity, improve water quality and contribute to flood regulation. Earlier this year we committed £250 million over 10 years for transformative peatland restoration.

We are now using ground-breaking new mapping technology to gain a better understanding of our diverse upland habitats, helping us to target restoration work efficiently. These improved peatlands will not only reduce carbon emissions and help preserve peatland as a carbon sink but they will be an essential boost for struggling upland birds and in particular waders such as curlew and golden plover.

Habitat fragmentation is one of the most significant drivers of biodiversity loss, creating disconnected 'islands' of habitat where species can become stranded and lose resilience in the face of challenges such as climate change and constraints on multiple habitat needs. Making space

for nature through developing partnerships around our suite of protected areas and taking action at large scale will massively benefit nature.

NatureScot and others including our national parks are taking action to tackle this decline through bold and ambitious partnership projects involving a range of conservation organisations and with support from the National Lottery Heritage Fund. NatureScot-led projects such as Species on the Edge and Working for Waders are combining expertise and resources. Funding awarded through our Biodiversity Challenge Fund supports ambitious landscape scale habitat restoration work tackling climate change, reducing fragmentation of habitats, benefiting vulnerable species, raising awareness and halting the decline of populations – especially through extending suitable breeding areas and reducing predation risk.

We are working with partners including the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and with land managers to conserve plants in the wild. A new plant strategy will recognise that plant conservation is about more than the species themselves; it includes habitats, genetic diversity, our many benefits from plants, and of course their economic value.

Globally, there is growing recognition of the importance of protecting and enhancing the soils resource. In Scotland the James Hutton Institute and other international research groups can work with us to lead by example in sustaining our soils. Not all of our land can be a nature reserve but making space for nature, with well-connected landscapes in good ecological condition, is key to creating the resilience that our species and habitats need to survive and thrive, and with it, us too.

In our response to Professor Werritty's Grouse Moor Management Group's recommendations, we have committed to bring forward proposals for licensing grouse shooting businesses to help tackle raptor persecution; for muirburn to be permitted only under licence, in order to protect wildlife and habitats; and a statutory ban on burning on peatland, except under licence for strictly limited purposes. These measures are a first for the UK. We have committed to engage and consult with all stakeholders with an interest in upland management when developing the measures set out in our response.

Next year we will respond to the recommendations of the Deer Working Group, originally chaired by the late Simon Pepper. The report made wide-ranging recommendations on changes to ensure effective deer management in Scotland that safeguards public interests and promotes the sustainable management of wild deer.

Together with the response to Professor Werritty's Group, we envisage transformational changes in upland and woodland stewardship, and enhancements in habitat quality and the richness of nature, while also continuing to support the rural economy.

Our new Biodiversity Strategy will highlight the need to facilitate the creation of new, locally driven projects – such as Cairngorms Connect – which aim to improve ecological connectivity across Scotland.

This offers exciting opportunities to work with delivery partners to agree priorities and identify projects for action.

We are also announcing now that we will extend the area protected for nature in Scotland to at least 30% of our land area by 2030, and that we are commissioning advice from NatureScot on how best to achieve this – and on whether we can go even further, given that we have already achieved 37% protection of Scotland's marine environment – including through identification of Other Effective area-based Conservation Measures (OECMs).

Planning

Our approach to planning will support our response to the twin global crises of biodiversity loss and climate change by strengthening policies to protect and restore Scotland's biodiversity and natural assets and improving their long-term resilience to the impacts of our changing climate. Our national planning policies already reflect the hierarchy of natural heritage designations, from international networks to locally important landscapes and nature conservation sites.

Through our work on National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4), we will develop ambitious new proposals which will deliver positive effects for biodiversity from development, without the need for overly complex metrics, and we will consider how they can support wider approaches to natural infrastructure.

We will ensure that our approach to planning supports Scotland's role in responding to the twin global crises of biodiversity loss and climate change, strengthening policies designed to protect and restore Scotland's biodiversity and natural assets and to improve their long term resilience to the impacts of our changing climate.

We will aim to reflect the fundamental role of our natural environment and biodiversity in providing essential natural services and benefits for our economy, health and wellbeing.

Working with Agriculture

In May this year, the European Commission published its draft Biodiversity Strategy for 2030: Bringing Nature Back into Our Lives alongside its Farm to Fork strategy as part of its European Green Deal, the roadmap for making the EU's economy sustainable.

The role of farmers, crofters and land managers in Scotland will be crucial in our efforts to tackle the twin crises of biodiversity loss and the climate emergency. Agricultural support has, for decades, been delivered through the EU Common Agricultural Policy. The UK Government's decision to take the UK out of the EU means a loss of certainty on future multi-annual funding and the potential to inform future EU policy. There is clearly a strong desire in Scotland to be a full and active member of the European family of nations. The Scottish Government shares that desire.

Despite the loss of certainty caused by EU exit, we must continue to build a sustainable food production sector for future generations, allowing households access to fresh and affordable local Scottish produce whilst also reducing greenhouse gas emissions, contributing to carbon sequestration, and helping improve biodiversity, and air and water quality. We are already working in partnership to develop new rural support measures that result in transition to a sustainable sector that more directly and explicitly supports our climate and environmental ambitions. Scotland's farmers and food producers will play a key role in reversing ecological decline and climate change.

Piloting an Outcome Based Approach in Scotland (POBAS) is a NatureScot-led project working with 40 farmers and crofters in four clusters across Scotland to test innovative approaches to delivering environmental outcomes on farms and crofts. The project aims to demonstrate and test how a results based approach can work best in different regions across different farm types.

We are also working on a longer-term rural policy which will build on this – in the future farmers and land managers should be rewarded for positive land stewardship that enhances and maintains the natural capital that well-managed land provides in Scotland. We have committed to developing a newrural support policy to enable, encourage and, where appropriate, require the shift to low carbon, sustainable farming through emissions reduction, sustainable food production, improving biodiversity, planting biomass crops, and appropriate land use change developed in line with Just Transition principles.

The multi-dimensional nature of farming, crofting and land use means that this is complex and challenging but can make a substantial contribution to our objectives. We will work to support farmers, crofters and land managers through this transition.