Scottish seabird conservation action plan: vulnerability report

Review Of Existing Measures, Actions Underway & Scope For More Potential Actions

There are existing overarching species and site protection legislation that provides protection for seabirds generally. Additionally, key strategies and policies increasingly recognise the fundamental importance of biodiversity to achieving broader environmental, economic and social objectives. There are also other multi-faceted areas of supporting work including research, monitoring, raising awareness and collaboration that provide crucial foundations and play an essential role in maximising the success of actions to directly address pressures. This report does not attempt to draw out all the relevant legislation, strategies, policies and multi-faceted areas of work that currently contribute to delivering conservation actions for seabirds.

To gauge the extent to which the main pressures identified through the vulnerability assessments are already being addressed, and the scope for additional or new pressure and/or species-specific potential action, a high-level review was conducted^[5]. Expert judgment was used to highlight where the most appropriate actions were already in place or underway, where more could be done, and to identify where new action would be beneficial to seabirds. This work was complimented by a report on ‘Potential actions to support recovery of seabird populations in Scotland’ (Furness et al. 2024) to understand what adaptive responses may be appropriate to address different pressures.

A stakeholder workshop in February 2020 also provided an opportunity for gaps and potential conservation actions to be highlighted.

A summary of the high-level review findings is provided in Table A4.1 and was used to provide the basis for developing proposed priority actions in the Scottish Seabird Conservation Action Plan.