Scotland’s EU Continuity Bill was passed by MSPs on 22 December 2020. This bill is an important one for Scotland’s natural environment, as it aims to ensure that the environmental safeguards that came with EU membership remain in place now that the UK has left the EU. It also sets up arrangements for Scots law to remain aligned with EU law on the environment and other matters in the future.
Following the publication of the bill last June, we campaigned hard for the Scottish government to strengthen it to ensure no gaps were created in environmental protections following Brexit. Thousands of people lobbied their MSPs to encourage them to vote for stronger measures. So how good is the final bill?
The bill secures some crucial protections for Scotland’s environment…
The bill embeds key EU environmental principles into Scots law and stipulates that Scottish ministers and policy makers must have regard to these when developing new policies or legislation. This follows two years of pressure from Fight for Scotland’s Nature supporters, who can chalk it up as a great victory. The principles include the precautionary principle, which requires that preventative policies must be put in place where there is concern that an activity is causing or could lead to environmental harm. In Scotland the precautionary principle has previously informed decisions not to allow fracking, genetically modified organisms or the use of harmful pesticides.
Significantly, an additional ‘integration principle’ was added to the bill, stating that consideration of the environment must be embedded across all areas of government.
The bill also grants Scottish government ministers new powers to keep pace with developments in EU law. Use of these powers in the future must be to advance environmental standards and social rights. This allows the Scottish government to uphold its commitment to ‘maintain or exceed’ European environmental standards in the future.
Campaign supporters will also be aware that the bill establishes a new Scottish environmental watchdog, Environmental Standards Scotland. This is itself an achievement, as it provides a mechanism by which Scotland’s environmental laws can be enforced now that we will no longer have the oversight of the EU Commission.
… but a vital gap remains in ensuring the watchdog can take action on public complaints of environmental damage
Throughout the second half of 2020, the Fight for Scotland’s Nature campaign pushed for the law setting out the new watchdog’s remit to be strengthened. Very disappointingly, the legislation prevents the watchdog from taking any enforcement action on individual complaints of environmental damage or breaches of environmental law. This could include an individual making a complaint about a specific incident of environmental damage in their local area. At EU level, action to rectify individual cases has been effective, and has set new precedents in environmental legislation, preventing problems from reoccurring elsewhere.
Instead, the new Scottish watchdog has been designed to only take enforcement action when a public body fails to comply with environmental law when the matter is deemed to be of ‘strategic significance.’ This could be, for example, significant breaches in air quality levels across the country or a failing in law to protect a particular wildlife species or habitat type.
Unfortunately, despite the many emails that were sent to MSPs on this issue, and the backing of Labour, Scottish Green and Liberal Democrat MSPs, we were not able to make progress on this vital issue. Amendments to the bill to empower the watchdog to act on individual cases were opposed by SNP and most Scottish Conservative MSPs, with opponents claiming that such a change could cause regulatory confusion and that the watchdog’s enforcement powers are expected to be used only on rare occasions. We’re disappointed that MSPs took this view, as in our experience strong enforcement powers can act as a deterrent and help to rectify issues early on.
However, this is not the end of the road for strengthening the arrangements of the watchdog. Scottish Environment LINK pushed for the bill to include a commitment for the Scottish government to hold a future consultation to assess the effectiveness of post-Brexit environmental protections, including to seek views on the need for a Scottish environmental court. MSPs agreed to add a requirement for this consultation into the bill and we can expect public views to be sought after the Holyrood election.
The organisations behind the Fight for Scotland’s Nature campaign, members of Scottish Environment LINK, will continue to make the case for the watchdog to be given more teeth to fully investigate and take action following individual complaints from the public.
The Fight for Scotland’s Nature campaign will continue to call on the Scottish government to take steps to protect Scotland’s wildlife and habitats. We will be making the case for the Scottish government to set clear, legally binding targets to halt the decline of our species and habitats and restore nature for future generations.
As we begin this new year, we lift our heads to the horizon for glimmers of hope. Across the globe, people are calling on governments to build back better after the pandemic, to transform how we do business and live and work together for a brighter, fairer and more sustainable future. With the intertwined climate and nature emergencies still rampant, collective recovery packages must lock-in clean, sustainable practices that actively contribute to climate and nature recovery. Last year, international expert reports confirmed that our global ocean has warmed unabated since 1970, absorbing more than 90% of the excess heat in the climate system, and that fishing has had a significant impact on marine biodiversity in the past 50 years alongside other significant drivers. Yet we also know that healthy fish populations and undamaged seabed habitats are better at locking up carbon. Overfishing, unsustainable development and climate change mutually reinforce a vicious cycle of ocean decline.
In Scotland, recent government announcements have increased the area of Scotland’s sea within the Marine Protected Area (MPA) network to approximately 37%. Yet, most of the network awaits actual effective protection from the most damaging industrial activities. For example, less than 1% of the area of inshore seabed fished by trawlers and dredgers has subsequently been protected from those heavy industrial activities within the existing MPA network. In fact, there is only one small fisheries no-take zone, pioneered by the Community of Arran Seabed Trust in north Lamlash Bay on Arran, in the whole of Scotland. Meanwhile, new salmon farms are still being proposed in existing MPAs, such as in Wester Ross to which we have collectively objected.
Business-as-usual has brought our ocean to the brink, with governments collectively failing to meet 11 of 15 Good Environmental Status indicators for the health of our seas that was required by 2020. Harbour seal populations have declined by 95% in parts of Scotland, North Sea cod stocks have reduced by 31% since 2015, black-legged kittiwake populations have declined by 69% since 1986 and most of Scotland’s seabed, particularly reef and “blue carbon” habitats, is not in good condition.
Ahead of 2021, the start of the crucial UN decade of Ecosystem Restoration and Scotland’s continued Year of Coasts and Waters, LINK’s Save Scottish Seas coalition have launched an Ocean Recovery Plan. It calls for requirements in law to set and meet ocean recovery targets, strengthening of Scotland’s MPA network to ensure at least 30% of Scotland’s seas are highly protected, with at least one-third of that area fully protected by 2030, a just transition to a climate and nature positive fishing industry and significant investment in ocean recovery.
In a poll commissioned by LINK, three out of four Scots agreed Scotland should commit to the target of 30% or more of the sea being highly protected. Whilst there has been some welcome progress in improving marine conservation, it has been slower than hoped and measures do not go far enough. International best practice recommends at least 30% of the ocean should be under high levels of protection, yet currently in Scotland that figure is lower than 1%. Increased levels of protection would help boost sea life, fight climate change and ensure coastal communities and livelihoods thrive long into the future.
The Scottish Government must turn rhetoric into reality and deliver a transformative decade of ocean recovery. Our plan charts a course to ensure that by 2030 the curve of ocean decline has been reversed and Scotland’s ocean ecosystems are on a path of recovery, able to support the fight against climate change. As we step into 2021 seeking a brighter future, nothing short of transformative change of the MPA network, fisheries management and marine conservation investment will deliver the scale of ocean recovery needed.
Calum Duncan, Convener of LINK’s Marine Group and Head of Conservation Scotland at Marine Conservation Society
A version of this blog was published in The Scotsman on 19 January 2021
Today MSPs at Holyrood voted to pass the EU Continuity Bill, setting out how Scotland will protect its natural environment from 1 January 2021, when the crucial environmental safeguards that come with EU membership cease to apply.
The Fight for Scotland’s Nature campaign has called since 2018 for strong new laws to protect and restore our amazing nature, and many thousands of people have added their voices to the campaign.
We’re really pleased that the bill embeds key EU environment principles in Scots law. These have underpinned Scotland’s ambitious climate change targets, and action against fracking and genetically modified crops. It’s a great achievement that they’ll continue to guide environmental policy.
The bill also sets up a new Scottish environment watchdog, Environmental Standards Scotland. Pressure from members of the public has helped give the watchdog greater independence, strengthening its ability to hold government to account.
But we’re disappointed that despite thousands of us writing to our MSPs on the issue, the new watchdog won’t be able to take enforcement action when people raise complaints about individual cases of harm to their environment. This deprives Scotland’s people of a vital means of seeking justice on environmental matters. And it means that determined campaigning by people and communities will be more important than ever in defending Scotland’s unique nature.
Scottish Environment LINK will continue to raise this issue with the Scottish government, pushing for the watchdog to have the power to act on citizens’ concerns.
Next, Fight for Scotland’s Nature is calling on the Scottish government to set clear, legally binding targets to halt and reverse the loss of our species and habitats. Look out for more on that in the new year.
A huge thank you goes to everyone who has supported the campaign so far.
Scottish Environment LINK, a coalition of Scotland’s leading environmental charities, has warned Scotland’s natural environment and wildlife remain at grave risk unless major gaps in new Scottish nature laws are closed before Brexit.
The warning comes just days ahead of a crunch vote on the EU Continuity Bill in the Scottish Parliament next week (22 December), which embeds a new set of legislation to replace those Scotland will lose once it leaves the EU on 1 January 2021.
The coalition is calling on the Scottish government to commit to strong laws that don’t water down the very EU legislations that have protected Scotland’s nature for decades. It has also stressed that failure to do so would undo decades of progress that could seriously set back Scotland’s environment and economy as the nation battles with the impact of climate change, Brexit and the coronavirus – bringing home the very real dangers Scotland is facing.
Scottish Environment LINK went on to raise concerns about plans for the new Scottish environment watchdog, Environmental Standards Scotland, also created under the Scottish government’s EU Continuity Bill. Unlike the EU watchdog, the proposed environment watchdog for Scotland will not be fully independent of government, risking its ability to hold ministers to account.
Furthermore, unlike the rights enjoyed as EU citizens, the new watchdog will not have the power to enforce action on specific cases relating to people’s concerns about their local environment in Scotland. An example of this includes the case brought forward by marine biologist, David Ainsley who in 2007 won a landmark ruling at European Court of Justice to halt the damaging practice of scallop dredging in the Firth of Lorn. The coalition points out that the new environment watchdog will be excluded from taking enforcement action on cases such as these whether the complaint is made by an individual, a charity, a community group or indeed whoever.
It has stressed that the watchdog will in effect be ‘toothless’ unless MSPs step up to the plate and use a crucial vote next week to give it the power to protect Scotland’s people and nature.
Marine biologist David Ainsley, who was part of the group which won the case at an EU level to protect the Firth of Lorn from scallop dredging, said:
Unless MSPs vote to amend the EU Continuity Bill to give the new watchdog powers and duties to address citizens’ complaints, it will be nigh on impossible to persuade a future government to enforce legislation protecting Scotland’s wildlife.
In 2007, after a long campaign to stop the damaging practice of scallop dredging, we won our case at an EU level and dredging in the Firth of Lorn Special Area of Conservation (SAC) was ruled as illegal. It’s amazing the difference this had made. Wildlife in and around the Firth of Lorn has recovered and is thriving. A healthier natural environment has also helped to support local businesses and create more jobs than when dredging was allowed. The recovery came about because as EU citizens we could raise concerns about damaging environmental practices and have an independent watchdog investigate it and enforce action against it.
As the Scottish government’s EU Continuity Bill stands, this will no longer be possible. This is tragic and comes at a time when one in nine species in Scotland is at risk of extinction. This in itself should be a ‘wake up call’ for the Scottish government to do more and not less for the health and wellbeing of its people and natural environment.
Vhairi Tollan, Advocacy Manager, Scottish Environment LINK said:
Without enforcement powers for individual cases, when citizens make official complaints about harm to a local coastline or greenspace, for example, the new watchdog won’t be able to do anything about it. This will deprive Scotland’s people of an important means of seeking justice on environmental matters – and a right we’ve enjoyed for decades as members of the European Union.
The Scottish government has promised to maintain or exceed environmental standards after Brexit – but by leaving this hole in the new Scottish system, it manifestly fails to do so. We urge MSPs to give the new watchdog the power it needs when they vote on 22 December, just nine days before EU protections cease to apply in Scotland.
We also urge the people of Scotland to contact their MSPs ahead of next week’s vote to ensure Scotland’s environment and its people are not let down at this critical time in our history.”
A blog from Charles Nathan, Head of Planning and Development at RSPB Scotland and Vice-Convener of LINK’s Planning Group.
One of the best ways to deliver transformational change is not only powerful, it can be easily delivered. A Scottish Nature Network helps focus effort and resources toward improving the ecological health of Scotland’s natural assets, including everything from vast landscape scale interventions, like restoring or planting woodland, to local projects such as enhancing or creating new city parks and community green spaces. Taking a strategic approach like this would result in a healthy and vibrant nature rich world that offers a wealth of benefits to society, not least in helping tackle the climate and nature emergency. This is explored in Scottish Environment LINK’s short film.
The rationale for a Nature Network is strengthened by Scotland’s natural assets. Scottish Government has committed to a target of Net-Zero emissions by 2045 – 5 years earlier than the rest of the UK – and are able to do so because of the wealth of its surroundings, such as vast peatlands and native woodlands, which capture and store carbon. However, to achieve these targets, changes to how we strategically plan, build on and manage land across Scotland, from hill-top to city park are needed. A Scottish Nature Network provides this, giving a common purpose to both rural and urban communities to enable them to enhance and reconnect nature by targeting where best to collectively take action and invest.
Peatland restoration and ambitious tree planting targets are the most familiar examples that demonstrate the power of nature to help society tackle the climate emergency, however many other natural habitats and systems, if in a healthy functioning state, can provide equally important benefits. The Scottish Nature Network identifies the locations and the measures that are needed to achieve healthy, resilient natural habitats that in turn help our society and economy. For example, Scotland faces a trend of warmer and wetter winters which are already increasing the risk of floods. These risks can partly be managed by recreating, altering or protecting parts of rivers. Using nature manages and reduces the impact of flooding. These include planting woodland on floodplains, changing the soil characteristics of adjacent fields or blocking streams in a way that mimics fallen trees and branches that all slow the flow of the water and decrease the effects of flooding.
Having the Network allows stakeholders to collaborate and identify the opportunities to contribute to the Network in their area, drawing together communities right across rural and urban areas from farmers and foresters, developers and health boards, key agencies and community enterprises. This approach would help align efforts to help achieve climate targets, restore nature, increase opportunity for, and investment in, green jobs, and help enhance the wellbeing of communities.
Nature is fundamental to human existence, it’s the very fabric upon which we all depend not only for climate regulation, food, timber, clean water and air but also for our personal and collective wellbeing. The natural spaces in our communities provide a space to breathe and reflect, a space for wildlife to exist in addition to the regulatory functions it plays in balancing water and air quality, temperature and noise pollution. But the advantage of a Scottish Nature Network is that it makes the situation better for nature, not just people, by restoring our natural environment and its ecosystems.
Strong government support for and investment in Scotland’s Nature Network is central to a green recovery. A recovery where we can reach climate and biodiversity targets with speed and efficiency, maximising the benefits to nature and climate and creating a positive change to the economic and social activities of our communities. From here on in we will be calling for the adoption of Scotland’s Nature Network.
A guest blog by Carla Worth del Pino, consultant at Resource Futures
Why don’t we repair?
If you’re anything like me, you have at least one electrical item gathering dust deep in a forgotten cupboard at home – perhaps it suddenly gave out on you, or maybe you decided to upgrade. The issue of upgrades is being partly tackled by company buy-back/trade-in schemes, like Curry’s PC World recycling old machines for free with cash-back of up to £75 towards a new one. But that’s of no use if an item just stops working. When faced with this, what is stopping you from trying to repair it?
The answer often relates to confidence, particularly around electronics. For many of us (me included) our repair abilities are limited to ‘turning it off and on again’ and giving it a solid tap, hoping that will do the trick. More complex repairs feel daunting. It’s a reason why electronics is the core focus for The Restart Project – a repair network that aims to showcase how electronics can be easier to fix than they seem, even with minimal experience.
We worked with Restart to seek ways to measure confidence, and how to measure the long-term impact that attending a repair event plays in building and maintaining this. Many Restart groups and Repair Cafes engaged with our research, from Repair Café Glasgow all the way down to a range of Repair Cafes in Devon linked to our Community Action Groups network. We found that attendees consistently cited a lack of confidence in repairing electrical items on their own as a major motivation to come, stay, and return to the repair events.
Planned obsolescence
While repair events are typically very successful in fixing broken items, we also found that in some instances, electrical items simply cannot be repaired even by repair experts – a recurring frustration among attendees and volunteers. For example, a manufacturer may have glued a battery into a phone, forcing you to replace the whole device when the battery wears out. In technical terms, this is called ‘planned obsolescence’: a policy of planning / designing products with an artificially limited life, making it obsolete (unfashionable / no longer functional) after a certain period of time.
The Centennial bulb, Livermore, California
One of the most notable examples of planned obsolescence is all around us – the humble light bulb. They typically last around 83 days (in constant operation); LED lightbulbs last longer at around 5.7 years. So how can one lightbulb have been in constant operation since 1901 – over 119 years? Coined the ‘longest burning light bulb in history’, a webcam streams live video of the ‘Centennial bulb’ to thousands of viewers every day.
The concept has infuriated consumers for several decades. However, abolishing planned obsolescence is not straightforward; there are larger chicken vs. egg arguments at play. What came first, planned obsolescence or our consumer habits? Are companies designing cheaper quality items in response to our consumer culture, or are we quickly consuming items because they are cheaper quality?
The concept is further complicated by the number of players involved: consumers, retailers, manufacturers, media advertising, designers and government actors all intertwine in a ravenous and fiercely competitive consumer culture. Manufacturers may feel forced to make goods at cheaper and cheaper price points to get products featured on retailers’ shelves; at the same time, consumers will understandably prefer to purchase a new item for cheaper than it would cost to repair their old one. It becomes a cyclical system whereby repairs become effectively uneconomical.
For any change to happen, efforts are needed to tackle both ends: our linear ‘take, make, use, discard’ consumer culture and poor-quality design of products.
Right to Repair
While repair events play an important role in slowing down our consumption – instilling confidence, teaching valuable skills and giving individuals an opportunity to experience a local and circular economy – effort is also needed to tackle more systemic issues like planned obsolescence.
Enter the Right to Repair movement: a coalition of European organisations directly involved in advocating for repair at EU level. The group advocates for ambitious policy measures to achieve a universal ‘Right to Repair’ through:
Asking that everyone has access to repair information and spare parts – not just professionals
Bringing urgency to policymakers on the need for more repairable and longer-lasting products, at national and European level
Advocating for an EU-wide repair labelling system to guide consumers towards durable, repairable products
Reinforcing their network of supporting Member States and business partners
Promoting repair beyond the EU to accelerate market transformation at global level
Restart is one of the steering members, and advocated for the concept at a ‘FixFest’ in Manchester; the event saw 59 activists from 25 groups come together to draft the ‘Manchester Declaration’ calling for more repairable products. The Declaration has since been endorsed by 17 political figures and many other organisations, such as Green Alliance and Greenpeace UK.
Right to Repair’s advocacy has reached international recognition as well. The European Commission announced in March 2020 that manufacturers of phones, tablets and laptops will face legal obligations to make products easier to repair and reuse under a new recycling plan. The European Commission will extend an eco-design law (which previously set energy efficiency standards) to also cover technical standards so these goods will be made with changeable and repairable parts.
Our consumer culture
The other end of the stick, our consumer culture, is more difficult to change. For this, it’s useful to look to other regions where reuse and repair are more deeply engrained and require less (or no) legislation or advocation for widespread practice. Emma Burlow, whilst Head of Circular Economy at Resource Futures, wrote about her trip to India as a circular economy expert. Her role was to share best practice from the UK on the circular economy and effective waste prevention strategies. She reflects:
“There are the repair shops that are literally on every street corner. Things that get broken are fixed, not thrown away. The age of some vehicles on the road and collections of spare parts in roadside stores shows the demand for repair is huge.”
She muses that perhaps the time has come for an Indian contingent to visit the UK, imparting best practice on creating a cultural revolution.
Our consumerism and disassociation with repair have other noxious effects, not only to the immediate consumer’s detriment but to the detriment of those far way in other parts of the world. Somewhat ironically, India is also a major importer of WEEE (waste electrical and electronic equipment). The large majority of e-waste in India flows to the informal sector, with only a very small fraction processed by formal regulated recycling facilities.
We’ve partnered with E[co]work and others to help support this informal sector through the provision of better managed space, but the fact remains that our (often repairable and reusable) electronic waste is processed by marginalised members of society half a world away, working in unsafe and unhealthy conditions. How do we instil an awareness of the implications of our consumer culture to both consumers and product designers, and could this reinvigorate the appetite for repair and show the major role it has in minimising WEEE?
The way forward
Industry and manufacturers do not create an insatiable consumer culture in a vacuum: we as consumers gladly (or perhaps blindly) play a part. However, I believe times are changing. Examples from alternative consumer cultures, coupled with the growth of the Right to Repair movement and widespread circular economy efforts, demonstrates that opportunities for a circular, sharing economy are bigger now than ever before. Studies have even shown that the Covid-19 pandemic may be changing our appetite for learning new skills and being more resourceful.
We might not be able to radically change our culture to emulate the resourcefulness in India, but we can encourage repair in new and innovative ways. In Sweden, for example, families can access tax breaks of about £2,500 a year to cover labour costs paid to repair businesses for repairs of appliances. We can develop people’s confidence in, and motivation to, repair, supported by a political framework that prioritises repair through reducing unnecessary planned obsolescence.
The Scottish Government has a unique opportunity to design and introduce ambitious policy to support this vision, facilitate this growing movement and help transition Scotland toward a more circular economy. Scotland’s upcoming Circular Economy bill is an ideal place to further drive the right to repair in Scotland. While the importance of repair is mentioned in connection with keeping resources in use for as long as possible, ambitious and explicit policy should be designed to the tune of the Manchester Declaration and the EU’s right to repair regulations.
On an individual level, as someone with very little experience in repair, I encourage everyone to seek out a Repair event in your community – there are several organisations hosting repair events; try searching ‘Restart Project’, ‘Repair Café’, ‘Transition Town’, or ‘Remade Network’ for an event near you. The experience of fixing something with your own hands that you thought was beyond hope is immensely satisfying and leaves a lasting impression. And next time you purchase an electrical item, maybe you will consider spending a bit more on an item that will last longer.
Can the repair movement gain enough momentum, at an individual, community, and institutional level, so that planned obsolescence becomes obsolete?
Last week, the Scottish Parliament was asked to vote on a motion, tabled by Mark Ruskell MSP, to declare a nature emergency. Disappointingly, the opportunity was missed to take this bold step, with SNP and Conservative MSPs voting instead for an amendment removing the words ‘nature emergency’ altogether and congratulating current efforts. Scotland would have become the first country to formally recognise the urgency of this decline as an emergency.
Yet, Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon declared a climate emergency in April 2019, and in the following May addressed the related biodiversity crisis, stating that “The challenges facing biodiversity are as important as the challenge of climate change, and I want Scotland to be leading the way in our response.” The Scottish Government may be a leading voice on climate change but an increase in ambition and investment in policies and projects to increase biodiversity is vital to nature’s recovery.
2021 will be a key year for making progress on reversing biodiversity declines. An international deal for nature will be agreed at the Convention on Biological Diversity conference in the autumn. This must be matched by domestic ambition. For over a decade, Scotland has striven to meet bold climate change targets, the same must now be put in place to address the nature crisis. In 2019, the State of Nature report found that 49% of UK species have declined as well as 1 in 9 species at risk of national extinction. Nature is in crisis, both in Scotland and around the world.
It is great to see growing recognition of this amongst MSP Species Champions. At the beginning of November, 30 Species Champions signed a letter to the Cabinet Secretary for the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform calling on the Scottish Government to deliver an ambitious, legally binding set of targets and milestones to secure nature recovery. At a time when environmental issues are increasingly brought to the fore, the need to have informed, passionate and supportive MSPs in Parliament ensuring our wildlife has a voice has never been more critical.
We were delighted to see Species Champions standing up for nature at the debate last week. Mark Ruskell MSP, Species Champion for white-tailed eagle, stated “Just as our legally binding climate targets have brought focus and scrutiny, so, too, are nature recovery targets needed in law to commit to halting the decline within a decade and fully restoring nature soon after.” For over a decade, Scotland has embarked on an ambitious programme to address climate change, with legally binding targets, and specific milestones and timeframes, which are stretching but achievable, and which are monitored and reported upon. The same must now be put in place to halt the loss of nature by 2030. Claudia Beamish MSP, Species Champion for forester moth, highlighted that Scotland has missed many of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets set in 2010. She stated that “Scottish Labour wants targets for nature recovery to be set into legislation”.
Alongside calling on the Scottish Government to set legally binding nature targets, MSP Species Champions highlighted the importance of delivering a Scottish Nature Network in order to increase connectivity of habitats and establish important links for wildlife. Claudia Beamish MSP stated: “We need to enhance, connect and expand all habitats and look to build a nature network”. A Nature Network across Scotland represents an investment in a wide-reaching natural solution with benefits for today’s climate emergency and nature crisis, as well as a thriving and resilient country. A Nature Network is a strategic, long term approach to manage, restore and enhance Scotland’s habitats and landscapes. Its approach builds a nature friendly landscape, which is pervious to nature and provides life affirming wildlife and nature encounters to all people. Sarah Boyack MSP, Species Champion for small skipper, supported Claudia’s Beamish’s statement by highlighting “We need to link biodiversity and tackling the nature emergency as part of the key policy framework in the upcoming national planning framework… we need a joined-up approach to land use management that brings wider benefits.”
In order to address the nature crisis, Scottish Environment LINK’s Holyrood 2021 manifesto calls on the next Scottish Government to set new, legally-binding targets for nature recovery to increase the abundance of wildlife species in Scotland and the restoration of their habitats. An ambitious set of targets is needed to clean up our air, soils, seas and rivers, by driving the development of policies that deliver the recovery of Scotland’s natural habitats and increase biodiversity. Nature is declining at an alarming rate and the climate emergency is intensified by the emerging global biodiversity crisis. Tackling the emergency that threatens the very existence of many species in Scotland needs to start right now. Restoring the obstacles humans have put in nature’s path so nature can move freely is more important than ever.
Juliet Caldwell
Nature Advocacy Officer at Scottish Environment LINK
Scottish Environment LINK, a coalition of Scotland’s leading environmental charities, has today welcomed initial improvements to the Scottish Government’s EU Continuity Bill, which delivers crucial post-Brexit environmental protections, including an environment watchdog.
From 1 January 2021, the EU’s world-renowned environmental protections will no longer apply to Scotland. The Scottish Government’s EU Continuity Bill seeks to establish a new environment watchdog to protect Scotland’s nature going forward, but campaigners have warned that major omissions mean the Bill must urgently be strengthened.
MSPs voted for several key amendments to the Bill this week (Tuesday 24 November and Wednesday 25 November) to increase the independence of Scotland’s new environment watchdog, Environmental Standards Scotland (ESS). The legislation now requires members of the watchdog’s board to have environmental expertise and Ministers have also agreed to discuss further changes that ensure that ESS has sufficient funding, and that this sufficiency is subject to parliamentary scrutiny ahead of the final vote on legislation in December. These changes will increase the watchdog’s independence from Scottish Ministers, heeding the concerns raised by thousands of supporters of the Fight for Scotland’s Nature campaign.
MSPs also secured commitments from the Scottish Government to discuss and seek to agree new measures in December to ensure Scotland’s process of maintaining alignment with the EU (the so-called ‘keeping pace’ power) secures high environmental standards. The Fight for Scotland’s Nature campaign has said that these new measures will be vital for ensuring that Scotland can be a progressive leader on the environment in the future and that there will be no backsliding in protections for nature.
However, Scottish Environment LINK has expressed concern that vital amendments to empower the watchdog to take enforcement action on individual complaints about environmental damage raised by citizens have not received government support. Without these changes to the draft legislation, people in Scotland are at risk of losing access to environmental justice once the UK leaves the EU at the end of 2020.
Vhairi Tollan, Advocacy Manager at Scottish Environment LINK, said:
As part of our EU membership, Scottish citizens have enjoyed rights to raise complaints about cases of environmental damage and have the EU watchdog investigate and take steps to enforce changes. However, similar powers are not included in the Scottish Government’s proposal for a new Scottish watchdog. Environmental Standards Scotland would be unable to take enforcement action on individual complaints, raising concern that we will lose this crucial means of accessing environmental justice at the end of 2020. At a time when 1 in 9 Scottish species is at risk of extinction in Scotland, key changes to the Continuity Bill must be made ahead of MSPs’ final vote in December to ensure Scotland’s new watchdog is a credible and robust enforcer of environmental protections.
Environmental Standards Scotland should act on local concerns, argues Miriam Ross, coordinator of the Fight for Scotland’s Nature campaign.
When a local beauty spot – a beach, a wood, a hillside – comes under threat, local people are very often its most passionate defenders. Meetings are held, alliances formed, knowledge rapidly acquired and shared, and politicians lobbied in a quest to save a much-loved piece of nature. Instinctively, we know we have both the right to enjoy a healthy environment where we live, and the responsibility to ensure it remains so. For many, the sense of connection to local nature has increased during the pandemic.
It seems extraordinary, therefore, to propose that a new institution being set up to defend Scotland’s natural environment will not be able to act in response to people’s efforts to protect a specific place or environment from harm.
But the Scottish government has done just that, in a bill currently before parliament.
The bill is the EU Continuity Bill, and the institution Environmental Standards Scotland, the new environment watchdog proposed in the bill to replace the crucial role the EU has played in monitoring and enforcing environmental standards.
There is much to welcome in the bill, including the incorporation of key European environmental legal principles into Scots law. And the creation of a new watchdog to fill the gap that would otherwise be left after Brexit is a very positive step, indicating an understanding that governments must be held to account on their compliance with environmental law.
But the new watchdog, as set out in the bill, contains a major omission which would leave Scotland’s people without real recourse to justice on the environment. The new body won’t be able to take action in response to complaints from people who believe that their local environment is at risk due to the failure of the responsible authorities to uphold the law designed to protect it.
In other words, if a local person, a community group or a charity makes a complaint about a decision to pollute a beach, chop down a wood or bulldoze a hillside, Environmental Standards Scotland won’t be able to do anything about it.
Complaints such as these make up the bulk of the European Commission’s environmental work, and so their exclusion belies the Scottish government’s stated intention to ‘replace the system of environmental governance provided by the institutions of the European Union’.
The European system of addressing individual complaints has real value, not least because judgements have often set legal precedents, helping to protect places far beyond the one referred to in the original complaint. And, because the Commission has the power to enforce its judgements, it holds weight with governments: often just the suggestion of a complaint to Europe is enough to persuade the relevant public authority to up its game.
The insufficient degree of independence the new Scottish watchdog is also concerning. The Scottish government is proposing that its own ministers should appoint the senior officials at Environmental Standards Scotland, with little oversight from parliament, calling into question how effectively it will hold that same government to account.
For people in Scotland, the ability to complain to a watchdog that can actually enforce the law becomes even more apparent when you consider the lack of affordable alternatives. The cost of seeking a judicial review is beyond the reach of most citizens, and judicial review can only look at procedural errors rather than examining the merits of the case.
The Scottish parliament is scrutinising the EU Continuity Bill over the next few weeks. The strength or weakness of the new institution it creates is likely to have profound implications far into the future. MSPs have the opportunity to amend the bill to establish a watchdog with the power and independence to defend Scotland’s people and nature, at a time when the challenges we face have never been greater. Now is the time to get it right.
30 MSP Species Champions signed a letter to the Cabinet Secretary for the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform calling on the Scottish Government to deliver an ambitious, legally binding set of targets and milestones to secure nature recovery. The letter, organised by Scottish Environment LINK, calls on the Scottish Government to champion nature.
Real action is needed to protect our environment so that it can continue to amaze us but also to continue performing the critical functions that enhance our health and wellbeing and are the foundation of our prosperity as a nation. In order to be world leading on nature recovery, Scotland must support a clear global goal to restore nature, with legally binding targets to address the nature emergency.
While fun and light hearted, the Species Champion initiative ultimately looks to address failing environmental policies and increasing threats on our natural environment by highlighting the need for habitats and species to be better protected, for the benefits of a thriving natural environment to be considered in all aspects of decision-making. At a time when environmental issues are increasingly brought to the fore, the need to have informed, passionate and supportive MSPs in Parliament ensuring our wildlife has a voice has never been more critical. By signing this letter, MSP Champions have taken the opportunity to champion not just their given species and its habitat but also wider policies and strategies with a significant impact on Scotland’s environment, climate, land and sea management. Thank you to the 30 Species Champions for standing up for nature and supporting the development of Scottish nature recovery targets.
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