Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) for the Agricultural Tenancies proposals Environmental Report
SEA is a systematic process for evaluating the environmental consequences of proposed plans, strategies, or programmes. This Report accompanies the Agricultural Tenancies proposals, within the Land Reform Bill.
Footnotes
1. Scottish Government (March 2022): ‘Delivering our Vision for Agriculture’.
2. Scottish Government (June 2023): ‘Agricultural Reform Route Map (second edition)’.
3. Ibid.
4. Scottish Government (September 2023): ‘Strategic Environmental Assessment of Agricultural Tenancies, Small Landholdings and Land Use Tenancy Proposals’
5. Scottish Government (August 2022): ‘SEA Screening Report on the New Agriculture Bill for Scotland’
6. Scottish Government (August 2022): ‘SEA Screening Report on the New Agriculture Bill for Scotland’
7. Scottish Government (June 2023): ‘Agricultural Tenancies: Agricultural Bill SEA Scoping Report’
8. Scottish Government (July 2023): ‘Agricultural Tenancies: Agricultural Bill SEA Scoping Report’
9. The Environmental Assessment (Scotland) Act 2005 highlights that the Environmental Report should present information on the likely significant effects on the environment, including on issues such as biodiversity; population; human health; fauna; flora; soil; water; air; climatic factors; material assets; cultural heritage, including architectural and archaeological heritage; landscape; and the inter-relationship between these issues.
10. Ecosystem Services are the variety of goods and services upon which people depend, and that arise from ecosystems. Ecosystem Services are commonly categorised into Provisioning (e.g. water, food production), Regulating (e.g. the control of climate and diseases), Cultural (e.g. aesthetic values, recreational opportunities), and the underpinning Supporting services (e.g. crop pollination).
11. Scottish Government (August 2023): ‘Strategic Environmental Assessment of Agricultural Tenancies, Small Landholdings and Land Use Tenancy Proposals’
12. The Scottish Government and AECOM subsequently agreed to include two additional SEA topics in the Environmental Report – soil and water quality (a combination of the soil and water SEA topics outlined in the Scoping Report) and landscape and historic environment (a combination of the landscape and cultural heritage SEA topics outlined in the Scoping Report).
13. Met Office (2018): ‘UKCP18 Science Overview Report’.
14. Met Office (2018): ‘UKCP18 Climate Change Over Land’.
15. Scottish Government (2019): ‘Scottish greenhouse gas emissions 2017’.
16. Scottish Government (2020): ‘Update to the Climate Change Plan 2018-2032: Securing a Green Recovery on a Path to Net Zero’.
17. Note the values used here are based on updated global warming potentials, as presented in IPCC 5th Assessment Report. Previous inventory data was calculated based on the IPCC 4th Assessment Report leading to minor discrepancies when presenting emissions in units of CO2e.
18. IPBES (2019): ‘Summary for policymakers of the global assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem services’.
19. NatureScot (2019): ‘State of Nature Scotland Report 2019’.
20. Ibid.
21. Firbank et al. (2007): ‘Assessing the impacts of agricultural intensification on biodiversity: a British perspective’.
22. Robinson and Sutherland (2002): ‘Post-war changes in arable farming and biodiversity in Great Britain’.
23. Boatman et al. (2007): ‘Impacts of agricultural change on farmland biodiversity in the UK’.
24. Ibid.
25. Hanley et al. (2008): ‘Economic determinants of biodiversity change over a 400-year period in the Scottish uplands’.
26. Withers et al. (2014): ‘Agriculture and eutrophication: Where do we go from here?’.
27. Burns et al. (2016): ‘Agricultural management and climatic change are the major drivers of biodiversity change in the UK’.
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