A blog by Juliet Caldwell, Species Champion Coordinator at Scottish Environment LINK.
The last few weeks have seen an unprecedented and disruptive change to our daily lives in a bid to keep us safe. In a time of uncertainty, what is certain is that the current situation and the advice regarding social distancing and self-isolation will have a massive impact on our mental health and overall sense of wellbeing.
The human-nature relationship is an important one. Studies across the world are clarifying what many instinctively know; that we often feel restored when we spend time in nature. Over the past few years mounting research has shown that interactions with nature lowers blood pressure and decreases levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which calms the body’s fight or flight response. Most research has focused on the visual aspects of nature experiences. However, humans are multi-sensory and benefits are delivered through non-visual senses such as sound, smell, taste and touch. Watching birds and listening to bird song can help filter away stress.
Globally, people are shifting their relationship to the natural environment at a time when access to shared outdoor space has rarely been so difficult. The COVID-19 pandemic may be a chance to shift perceptions of what “nature” really means and finding new hyper-local ways to appreciate it. At a time when the mental health effects of mass isolation and anxiety over a rising death toll are still unmeasured and unknown, experts have highlighted the importance of getting up close with nature in whatever way possible. Vitamin D from the sunshine boosts immune systems and bone health. Immersion in greenery has been linked to reduction of stress, healthier heart rates and blood pressure.
However, the current lockdown is proving challenging for millions of people across the country who do not have access to greenspace. Access to greenspaces has become a luxury, despite access to them being fundamental to our ability to stay healthy. Public parks have closed their gates and neighbourhoods are losing vital access to green space. While strict isolation rules have been implemented to keep us safe, not having access to nature in an outdoor space has dangerous knock-on effects on physical and mental health for many. However, an increased quantity and quality of green space won’t just benefit us – it’ll help conserve biodiversity and reverse nature’s decline so that wildlife can thrive, not just survive.
Our opportunities to engage with nature may be fewer during the pandemic but there are numerous ways to stay connected to the natural world and look after your wellbeing. Noticing nature through a window, tending plants or taking green exercise all can improve your well-being and self-esteem. We are currently watching spring unfold, a symbol of renewal and regeneration. Humans are inherently social, and the prospect of forced isolation has led many of us to reconnect with nature. Nature will nurture us. However, the relationship will only survive and remain balanced if it is reciprocated.
There’s nothing good about the coronavirus pandemic. Since we’re fated to go through this passage, we may as well learn something from it. There are a few insights to learn. The COVID-19 crisis has seen humans act with unprecedented solidarity. It is abundantly clear now that prevention is better than cure. The pandemic has revealed some truths: that disasters do not respect borders; that solidarity brings strength; that science and expert advice matter; and that delay is deadly. The same lessons hold true for today’s nature crisis, where nature, in Scotland and across the world is diminishing in terms of species diversity and habitat occupation. While the pandemic was sudden and will be temporal, the impacts of nature loss is incremental, but also severe and persistent. Without support and investment, nature cannot continue to provide the wellbeing and livelihoods we depend on.
People around the world are realising the importance of nature for our wellbeing. The world has come to a standstill and we’ve never had so much free time. People are turning to gardening and small-scale agricultural activities. We have time to reflect upon our relationship with nature. People of all ages are craving open spaces; realising the wellbeing and health benefits of being in nature. We need nature more than ever, as a solution, as a resource, for respite and for our mental health and wellbeing. Appreciating nature and having access to it has never been so important.
When planning for this event, no one could ever have predicted how this theme would come to serve not only its original purpose – to focus minds on creative synergistic solutions to the twin biodiversity and climate emergencies – but also to resonate with such profound clarity as we move through the global pandemic and look towards a fundamentally transformed future.
The collective realisation that the way this transformation will unfold lies in our hands, that, despite collective loss and suffering, despite recession and job losses, we stand at a uniquely unfrozen moment, is tangible.
People are already beginning to find and take the opportunities inherent in our new context, to work towards a better world.
In New Zealand, a country with a human population virtually identical to Scotland’s, the government this week announced a $1.1 billion investment to create 11,000 new environment-based jobs[1]. The focus and thrust of this investment is the restoration of nature: regional environment projects; the control of invasive species and biosecurity to prevent future problems; new jobs in the statutory conservation agencies’ programmes for protected areas and beyond, including species and habitat monitoring; and a new budget to fund biodiversity restoration on both public and private land.
Also this week, the European Commission is releasing its long-awaited Biodiversity Strategy – but in a progressive move, simultaneously launching its Farm to Fork Strategy. Agriculture and fishing are among the most important drivers of biodiversity loss across the planet. The simultaneous launch signals that a new norm may be emerging in Europe – where food production and nature work to mutual benefit for a healthy and sustainable future. LINK organisations have yet to analyse the detail of these strategies, but initial indications are promising: they aim to increase nature protected areas on land and at sea by 30%; to restore 10% of farmland for biodiversity, with more and better managed field margins, hedgerows and wildflower areas; to introduce binding nature restoration targets, to restore ecosystems such as peatlands, wetlands, forests and marine habitats – essential nature-based solutions for an effective package of climate change mitigation and adaptation.
The COVID-19 pandemic must offer lessons for us all. For me, it has brought home the simple fact that a healthy planet is a precondition for healthy human societies and personal wellbeing; that science and evidence should guide and direct policy; and that crises must be acted on quickly if we are to gain and effect control.
These two developments, at contrasting geographic scales and in distant parts of the world, hopefully signal that such lessons from the pandemic are beginning to be learned, and that this learning is being put into practice quickly and decisively.
We all know that despite the sudden and intense shift of focus that the pandemic brought us, the climate and biodiversity emergencies have not gone away. The State of Nature 2019 report[2] tells us that we are losing nature in Scotland. The IPBES Global Assessment[3] tells us that transformative change is needed to reverse such losses and avoid severe damage to human wellbeing from ecosystems degradation.
Scotland’s Environment Strategy and Programme for Government point to an intent to address these crises effectively in future. We already lead in key areas like peatland restoration. Now we are seeing strategic and practical post-Covid developments emerging across the world that signal new and progressive ways forward. I believe that with investment and imagination Scotland can join these leaders – and that a better future is in our grasp.
A blog by Professor James Curran MBE, Chair of the James Hutton Institute and Honorary Fellow of Scottish Environment LINK.
As I write this, the world-wide battle against Covid-19 is underway. In every country, Governments are taking unprecedented action and mobilising enormous financial resources. In the UK there are the first signs of a reduction in hospitalisations and, hopefully, the appalling rate of fatalities will soon decline.
The emergency arose, at least partly, both due to a lack of preparation, even though a pandemic was recognised many years ago as a likely global threat (eg see Fig1 of the World Economic Forum Global Risks 2015 report), and due to a lack of resilience in public and private services. National governments have an over-riding responsibility to provide security for their citizens and every unnecessary fatality, due to poor preparation, is a great sadness and also an inexcusable failure.
We have been witnessing thatgovernments, in extreme circumstances, can take extraordinary powers and have the ability toembrace innovation and take decisions at unprecedented speed. We have also seen that market-based solutions have provided little or no protection to citizens. These lessons must be learnt.
As we turn around the crisis and look towards the exit strategy, then there should be demands for the recovery packages to create a world that is better equipped to respond to such emergencies. We should not tolerate a repeat of the 2008 financial crash, the aftermath of which fundamentally changed very little. It is unacceptable to have an economy which can be facing ruin within a few weeks of the emergence of a new virus. The recovery pathway, this time, will set the direction for decades to come. That recovery may well, and hopefully will, be quite rapid with suggestions that pre-Covid GDP may be attained as early as 2021/22. So, thought must be given to the future.
The current world-wide financial support packages and future stimulus packages are already, and most certainly will,farexceed those mobilised in 2008. Those packages must mainstream sustainability and there is likely to be increasing demand for them to focus significantly on social care, social support and health resilience.
The UN Sustainable Development Goals provide an existing model on which to shape the recovery and the European Commission, at the end of 2019, also released it thoughts on a European Green Deal, emphasising the need for a set of deeply transformative policies and a global response. Although specifically targeting the climate and ecosystem emergencies, the proposals set out “to protect the health and wellbeing of citizens from environment-related risks and impacts”. With suggestions that Covid-19 emerged as a result of poor wildlife regulation in China, this European document is certainly well-timed.
In Scottish terms, the proposals align well with our aspirations for inclusive and sustainable economic growth.It is time to create smarter, climate-proofed infrastructure, develop regenerative agriculture, mainstream multi-modal public transport, reform taxation to reflect externalities, and to pursue a low-resource circular economy – all with much increased ambition. This time round, disaster recovery must treat people as part of the solution, and not as an aspect to be managed. Unlike 2008, this emergency really has been shared; the virus has attacked right around the world and attacked both rich and poor. Most of us have relied very heavily on the commitment of service-providers, previously marginalised and often described as low-skill, and certainly low pay. It is to be hoped that greater degrees of solidarity may emerge.
You would expect me to argue that the combined climate and nature emergencyis, and most certainly will become, a challenge that will dwarf even that presented by Covid-19. It has been declared an “emergency” by many authorities and yet the actual response has been insignificant compared to that marshalled against the Coronavirus. The scale of the climate challenge is considerable. For example, a drop of 10% in global GDP in 2020, with a return towards normal in 2021, probably only gives us an extra 3 weeks over the next 30 years to meet the necessary emissions targets. See Figure 1 here for more detail.
Climate change demands global co-operation; it demands behaviour change; it demands public and private investment. However, it doesn’t have the immediacy of the pandemic and it hasn’t established a shared emotion as a powerful driver for change – at least not yet.
So, there will be a struggle to get voices heard for a new approach in amongst the demands, by many and varied interests, for our society and economy to be rebuilt rapidly and on the lines of the status quo. Partnerships like LINK, which take the longer view,should be prepared to shout loudly to be heard above the tumult.
We must marshal the arguments and appeal to the post-Covid sentiment. We need a countryand an economy that is prepared for shocks in the future and that protects its citizens and lifestyles. Indeed, Core Cities UK, a partnership of the UK’s major cities outside London, has suggested this is the time for “reimagining the future of cities.”
Scotland has a broad-based economy and should be well-placed to emerge stronger and more resilient. We have strengths in technology and innovation, in renewable energies, in food & drink, and in the financial sector, particularly insurance. Very low interest rates offer opportunities for public and private investment on an unprecedented scale to rebuild our social and environmental fabric.
Many experts, including LINK, continue to prepare the pathway to a better future and to ensure we have the information which allows us to be ready for the impacts of climate change,and indeed to seize some of the opportunities that will be presented. It will be more important than ever to create a dedicated national green recovery package that will support jobs and livelihoods that will endure, in renewable technologies and in the circular economy. These will be jobs that are more locally based and that add greater value along the supply and delivery chains. They are jobs that will not continue to undermine and exploit our environment and the life support systems provided by nature. Indeed, we must invest in nature-based solutions and green infrastructure, and improved access to life-enhancing natural environments,on a scale and in extent not seen before. The demands of climate change mitigation and adaptation must be addressed simultaneously. We can create a better, socially more just, more economically robust, and a happier and healthier place to live, here in Scotland.
Scientists predicted a global pandemic. It appeared on global risk registers. But we weren’t ready.
Scientists predict a climate and nature emergency. It appears on risk registers. This time we must prepare.
A blog by Kevin Lelland, head of development and communications at the John Muir Trust and a Trustee of Scottish Environment LINK
It’s the black swan of our time. Few of us could have imagined how our lives and society could change so dramatically and quickly by an insidious pandemic that affects all of us and especially the poor, vulnerable, key workers and those who have lost loved ones to Covid-19. For government, businesses and charities alike decisions have by necessity been taken quickly.
For those who can, work from home has been implemented and where the ability to sustain a job role is hindered by personal circumstances or ability to work, the UK government has supported individuals and organisations with a furlough scheme (at the time of writing, until the end of May 2020).
It’s a situation that all of us within the Environment LINK network are getting to grips with and dependent on the current state of each our organisations there are difficult decisions being made that aim to support staff, continue to fulfil the purpose of our charities and all while we try to assess how to secure the long-term health of our organisation when the future is so uncertain.
What is clear is that almost all environmental NGOs will now need to start thinking about what a streamlined organisation looks like in the coming months and what it (and we as a collective) can now achieve for nature, people, communities and the environment during the rest of this year.
As we embark on this next stage here’s six aspects those who manage teams will need to consider…
1) Transparency. It’ll be important to lead the transition to a streamlined team based on values and virtues first. Any decisions made on furloughing and the rationale used will need to be communicated clearly with all your team. Share with everyone in your organisation the need to deal with each other, more so now than ever, with respect, candour, fairness and consistency. Set the example and aim for transparent work methods and communications that seek input across all colleagues as appropriate and ask and expect for comment and ideas without drama. This is a stressful time in which each of your team will be affected differently, but many aspects of work can remain calm and measured.
2) Team work. Make sure regular team meetings and one to one meetings with line managers are a top priority. Ask that they have a clear purpose and agendas that result in positive actions. Encourage active listening and that colleagues seek advice from each other, address uncertainty, give due praise and provide encouragement and support. Look to foster trust by making sure people are clear on what is expected of them, with adjusted roles in place and explanations on how that contributes to the streamlined team. Consider investing more time and energy on internal communications during this period, thinking not just about modern technologies, but also how to strike a balance between process and culture. Look at ways to keep those on furlough informed of what is happening in the organisation and look at how you can also support them to have an option to stay in touch with colleagues in a personal capacity, for example, through work based social media groups. Think about who is best placed to support and champion your desired messages and behaviours inside the organisation.
3) External communications. Look at what you can communicate externally, thinking carefully about volume and frequency with a focus on values-based messaging and the tone of voice that is most relevant to society right now. For the environmental sector values such as unity with nature and health and well-being as part of nature should come to the fore. Be aware of how you communicate any short-term gains or ‘case studies’ we see for the environment as a result of the pandemic, it’ll likely be more effective to focus on the long-term systematic changes our planet needs to make. Are your messages framed to be positive and inclusive and do they balance emotive messages with facts? You can also look at where there could be advantages by increasing investment in specific tactics and or brand awareness especially if timed correctly and as a result of a clear opportunity to address an increased understanding in society of the need to shift behaviours as a result of the pandemic.
4) Positioning. Consider where there will be opportunities to position your organisation and its work as a result of the pandemic. Like any major disruptor that emerges in society, it’ll be those who act, react and interact with the situation as is, not as was, that will go forward, meet their objectives and be supported by people in the future. We may find that if society changes the way it operates due to the pandemic, so too will some charities need to change how they fulfil their purpose. Make space to consider where you might need or want to change what you do, start to think through the rationale and narrative of that now, and the pace at which you can realistically do this given the immediate focus on the current impact on your team and finances – you can go too fast and too slow. Be clear on what resources and activities you need to prioritise. Identify and share with your teams where this could be an opportunity to instigate long-term cultural and operational changes and seek other ideas. Many of us are already being forced to pilot and test new ways of home working, what else might be ideal to test or pilot at this time?
5) People. Our people make our organisations what they are, often providing the voice that connects our charities to nature and people by providing the insights into the issues we care about and changes we want to see happen. Be empathetic to the situation your team finds itself in and look to find solutions with them while being clear about the challenges and difficult decisions the organisation is facing as a result. With such upheaval in general and in each of our personal circumstances, it’ll be important to think about and share the critical roles everyone is still able to play and how to motivate people in the long-term, even if in the interim some people are furloughed or asked to work reduced hours. Furloughed employees can undertake work-based training and or local volunteering. Some of them may wish and need support to take-up these options.
6) Measurement. Recognise where existing performance indicators are no longer valid. Pay attention to putting key metrics in place during this temporary period and do that with the team who will deliver them. SMART targets will be more important than ever. While getting graphs going up to the right and measuring your effectiveness and efficiencies will remain important, have a clear narrative for the team around the areas where you might reasonably expect ‘performance bumps’. Look to avoid what is known as Simpson’s Paradox where an upward trend can appear in one group of data, but disappears when several groups of data are combined.
Finally, be kind to yourself and others that are having to make difficult decisions, recognising there is no precedent to support or guide many of the conversations we are having. Reach out within your network for advice from those who are grappling with the same challenges. There’s an African proverb that says, if you want to go fast go alone, if you want to go far go together. The latter is very much the attitude I see within the Scottish Environment LINK network and one we should foster during these difficult times.
Thousands of people have died, and thousands more are bereaved. Jobs are lost, businesses destroyed, hopes and plans in tatters. But it could have been even worse.
What if the shops had actually run out of food, not just delivery slots? They didn’t. The massive stocking up, followed by the closure of the entire catering and hospitality sector, created a huge sudden shock to the supply chain. The chain flexed, and it didn’t break.
Of course, for various reasons, many people still don’t have access to food. Government in Scotland, both local and national, is trying to tackle this. But there is no national or global shortage of food.
This resilience in the supply chain is partly about technology, but mostly about trust. Countries didn’t close their borders to trade in food, because they were confident that other countries would keep their borders open. This co-operation has extended to sharing data as well as medical supplies and healthcare workers.
So, what can we learn so far from the Covid-19 crisis about food, climate and nature?
First, that our food system can change rapidly. Overnight, we have stopped eating and drinking outside the home. That’s changing what as well as how we eat.
Food is a key driver of three global challenges – obesity and malnutrition; the collapse of biodiversity; and global heating. If we want to deliver fully on our aspirations for climate, for nature or for public health, we have to change the food system. What we eat is shaped by our food environment, and this crisis has brought home to us how much that environment is shaped by a handful of businesses. The power they hold should be used responsibly.
Beyond the crisis, supermarkets should be making it easier for us to buy and eat what we need to stay well with a healthy, balanced diet. They could and should be reducing the environmental impact of the food they sell, both in terms of climate and nature; for example, by supporting agroecology and by reducing supply chain waste and enabling more plant-based eating.
There have been baby steps of change in this direction, but we now know that new can become normal in a couple of days. That’s why it’s especially disappointing that the Scottish Government’s Good Food Nation Bill is another inevitable casualty of the virus, when it has the potential to bring about the level of change we want to see in a sustainable and socially just society.
Second, this crisis has shown that countries can take rapid and drastic action – whatever it takes – and get support from their citizens. And they can work together to confront a challenge. There could have been some more visible global leadership, but in this real emergency after some early wobbles countries are co-operating in the common interest rather than manoeuvring for advantage. The level of future international co-operation will determine whether this crisis generates a green recovery or a grey depression – neither is inevitable.
Third, that people can get left behind in a transition. For some of us in the UK, so far this has been an inconvenience but not a disaster. Many people have kept their jobs and are being paid as normal, even if they have had to adjust their lifestyle and the way they work. But millions have lost their livelihoods overnight because of events for which they were not responsible. The parallels with climate change are all too obvious.
While most people in the UK are food secure, millions are experiencing food insecurity. There are two groups affected. First, those most vulnerable to the impact of the virus, who have been told to stay at home and whose normal ways of getting food have been disrupted. Government has been slow but is now following up its message to stay home with a coordinated system to make sure people are getting the food they need. Similarly, cash or food is now being put in place for children eligible for free school meals.
The second group are the people whose income is wholly inadequate to meet their living costs: those who have lost their income and have had to turn to Universal Credit and personal loans within a week or two; and the people who were already food insecure before this crisis hit – including many refugees and asylum-seekers who have no recourse to public funds. Food banks and new community level charity efforts are springing up across the UK in light of the lack of coordinated response to this need.
The Scottish Government’s investment of £350 million to strengthen the Scottish Welfare Fund and support the efforts of local authorities and communities is very welcome. Communities have a vital part to play in enhancing our wellbeing, but it must not be left to a scramble of well-meaning charities to pick up the pieces. Not at this time, and not afterwards. When the grip of this crisis has passed, we should remember seven words:
Food matters Whatever it takes Just transition
Pete Ritchie is the Director of Nourish Scotland and the convener of Scottish Environment LINK’s Food and Farming Group.
A version of this blog featured in The Scotsman on 14 April 2020.
Today, more than ever before, we need to focus on the essentials for everyone: good living and working conditions, clean water and air, a thriving natural world, a safe climate for the next generation, and strong and functioning democracies that will continue to protect us in times of need. Today, we also need hope: hope that the future, once we emerge from the current crisis, will be a better one for us all. Focussing on this may help us now.
We now know that the two hugely important UN environment summits in 2020 have been postponed: the Climate COP26 hosted by Glasgow will now take place in 2021 and the date of the October Nature COP15 in Kunming, China, is being adjusted. When the rescheduled Climate and Nature COPs get underway in 2021, they need to deliver on the world’s priorities.
This was the only decision that could have been made at this juncture and it is the right decision for the wellbeing of our international society. We are in the midst of global pandemic where governments, health workers and communities across the world are putting all their resources and mental and physical energy into combatting this pandemic as it continues to kill thousands of people across the world. Our NHS workers are doing an amazing job. They need the reassurance that we learn the lessons of this pandemic so we prevent future ones but have in place the structures for a better response if needed.
However, 2020 had been seen as a year of hope for the environment: there was the explicit acknowledgement from governments, with the Scottish Government a welcome early leader, of the climate emergency and the nature crisis. With Scotland playing a key role in both COPs, we had high hopes that government and society were finally seeing the environmental impacts we were having across the world as the truly unsustainable impacts they were. We must not lose the hope, however, that when we start to come out of the current crisis, we move forward into a sustainable trajectory – one that counters dangerous climate change, restores nature and builds just societies. Nature sustains us and the interconnectedness between healthy ecosystems and healthy people has been underlined by the pandemic. One is simply not possible without the other.
If anything, the current pandemic, shines an unflinching light on the unsustainable ways the world has been operating. Professor Josef Settele from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, co-chair of the IPBES Global Assessment Report, noted: “Despite some questions remaining, the global state-of-the art in science undoubtedly shows: The conservation of intact ecosystems and their characteristic biodiversity can reduce the emergence of infectious diseases. Humanity depends on functioning, diverse ecosystems. By destroying ecosystems we are also destroying our livelihoods, as the coronavirus epidemic is showing. That is why we have to join together and commit to transforming our society to protect our foundations of life.”
UN’s environment chief, Inger Andersen has summed it up: “There are too many pressures at the same time on our natural systems and something has to give,” she added. “We are intimately interconnected with nature, whether we like it or not. If we don’t take care of nature, we can’t take care of ourselves. And as we hurtle towards a population of 10 billion people on this planet, we need to go into this future armed with nature as our strongest ally.”
Over the last week, countries are launching stimulus packages to support SMEs, citizens who have lost their jobs or income sources, and the health sector. They are doing this amidst calls to bail out airlines, cruise ship companies, the fossil-fuel sector. We cannot afford to forget that what we spend today will define the future, so we should spend it wisely. Our decision-makers face difficult choices, and it is fundamental that these are carefully considered, that funding decisions are transparent, and that they are conditional on delivering public goods. We cannot afford to allow losses to be nationalised and profits to be privatised as has happened too often in the past.
Under the pressure to act, governments are looking for blueprints for the ideal recovery stimulus package. We would do well, despite Brexit and whatever that brings, to look at the ‘greenprint’ of the European Green Deal. Although not perfect, the framework it offers has the potential to become a truly transformative agenda, driving the decarbonisation of our economies while creating millions of secure jobs and shifting from linear resource-intensive production models to more sustainable circular ones that seek zero waste. This will improve the resilience of our economies. It needs to include effective mechanisms to halt biodiversity loss and resource over-extraction. And to be successful, it must support the resilience of our ecosystems and strengthen our communities. The current crisis has underlined not only the importance of human health to us all, but also the fundamental importance of natural systems with space to function. A framework like the European Green Deal has the potential to put wellbeing of people, built on the wellbeing of nature, at the heart of policies.
In Scotland, work on updating the Climate Change Plan in light of the ambitious emissions reduction targets adopted in September last year has understandably been paused too. However, it is vital that when the grip of this pandemic has eased that attention quickly returns to this necessary update to put us on track to net-zero. Cabinet Secretary Roseanna Cunningham’s statement that the Plan will now contribute to “a green recovery for Scotland” is a welcome sign that the environment will be viewed as central to economy going forward.
For today, and in the coming weeks, we face a choice. It is far from guaranteed that our response to the crisis will be one that bounces us forward to a more sustainable future, and not undermined by responses that prop up polluting activities and that risk creating more problems in the future. The truth is it would be dangerous to return to business as usual after the Covid-19 virus because business as usual gave rise to many of the dangers we still face, not least climate breakdown, catastrophic loss of biodiversity and global plastic pollution. That’s why LINK and our members have been calling for a just transition to a green economy, which values the welfare of workers and our communities and is founded upon healthy and fully functioning ecosystems on a resilient planet. We are looking for a better immediate future for us and a better longer-term future for our children.
In 2019, the First Minister declared a climate emergency and linked it to the ongoing nature crisis. Nature needs to be given the best possible fighting chance, including protection of animals. The Animals and Wildlife (Penalties, Protections and Powers) (Scotland) Bill, which is currently progressing through the parliament aims to strengthen animal cruelty penalties and introduces emergency procedures to rehome animals. The Bill is a step forward in providing further protections to animals, where once in effect, there will be improvements for enforcement agencies that will benefit all animals in Scotland. For example, the Committee calls on the Scottish Government to extend the powers of the Scottish Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SSPCA) in order to improve enforcement of the legislative provisions. Stakeholders highlighted that given wildlife crime mainly occurs in remote areas, therefore it can be difficult for the police to prioritise attending within a timeframe that allows for the capture of evidence. In the words of Minister for the Environment and Rural Affairs, Mairi Gougeon, Species Champion for hen harrier, the legislation will ‘modernise and strengthen the implementation of existing legislation, impacting on animal welfare’.
LINK members have previously advocated enhancing protections for animals by increasing penalties for most serious wildlife crime offences. In November 2019, LINK’s Wildlife Group responded to the Committee’s call for evidence. In line with Poustie review recommendations LINK members championed measures such as more stringent sentencing and potential for unlimited financial penalties for more serious wildlife offences.
Illegal fishing and attacks on birds are two types of wildlife crime in Scotland. Freshwater pearl mussels numbers have dramatically declined due to habitat damage and illegal pearl fishing. Freshwater pearl mussels are an important species ecologically; adults are capable of filtering litres of water per day which provides improved water quality for other species such as fish, eels, otters and more. Moreover, illegal persecution of eagles is the most severe constraint on Scottish Golden Eagles. Raptors are often targeted and killed illegally with traps, poison or shooting. Andy Wightman MSP, Species Champion for Golden Eagle, accompanied conservation workers to satellite-tag a young Golden Eagle in 2018. In April 2019 Adam was reported to have disappeared in suspicious circumstances. Birds of prey such as hawks, eagles, kites, buzzards, harriers, falcons and owls are all protected species in the UK. However, raptor persecution is an ongoing serious problem in specific areas in Scotland.
On the 12th of March the MSPs debated the Bill. The debate offered MSP Species Champions an opportunity to show their support of the general principles of the Bill on animal welfare reform. Fifteen MSP Species Champions contributed to the debate.
The importance of offering further protections to species habitats had support from MSPs. Colin Smyth MSP began by declaring his interest as ‘Scottish Environment LINK’s MSP Species Champion for badgers’. Colin Smyth stated ‘Scottish Badgers and Scottish Environment LINK specifically highlighted the need for stronger protection for habitats and badger setts, which was reflected in the committee’s conclusion that the destruction of a habitat could be as fatal as directly harming or killing an animal.’ This response underscores LINK’s position on the Bill. Both badgers themselves and their setts are accorded legal protections, however, the current protections do not account for deliberate or accidental harm to habitats and badger setts.
Gillian Martin MSP, Species Champion for grey seal and yew, highlighted the detrimental effects of destroying an animals’ habitat ‘…can be as fatal as directly harming or killing an animal’. Gillian Martin also emphasised the importance of protecting badger setts ’the destruction of badger setts could lead to the destruction of a colony and the deaths of some or all of the animals, particularly during breeding.’ LINK welcomes this and notes that current provision for penalties on damage to a species’ place of breeding and rest, does not consider the relationship between the disturbance/destruction caused to its habitat and the animals’ life. Finlay Carson MSP, Species Champion for Leisler’s bat, provided further support ‘As Gillian Martin mentioned, the likes of destroying a single badger sett needs to be considered in light of the long-term impact on the colony. He described the Bill as ’long overdue’, adding: ‘We need to introduce new penalties for those who continue to cause pain and suffering to animals and wildlife’.
Wildlife offences regarding damage/destruction to habitats impact species such as bats and birds of prey as well. Currently, there is an absence of appropriate penalties in relation to wildlife offences such as destruction of bat roosts. Bats are European Protected Species and crimes against the species most commonly involves the destruction of their roost habitats. Mark Ruskell MSP, Species Champion for white-tailed eagle, threw a spotlight on the impact this has on birds of prey ‘every year we celebrate as fledgling sea eagles, golden eagles or hen harriers are tracked leaving their nests, but every year the same birds are found dead, poisoned and shot.’ To offer further protection to bats and birds of prey LINK has recommended that offences relating to European Protected Species should have the potential to be unlimited.
Since its launch in 2013, the Species Champions initiative has gone from strength to strength: at the start of the current parliamentary session in 2016, 56 MSPs were signed up to the scheme; today, at almost halfway through the current session, there are 104 MSP champions, representing 80% of the Chamber. The Species Champion initiative provides a clear and accessible way for MSPs to do their bit for Scotland’s nature and future generations, we welcome the support provided by the 15 MSP Species Champions at the Bill debate.
Click here to read LINK’s response to the Animals and Wildlife (Penalties, Protections and Powers) (Scotland) Bill.
104 MSPs have signed up to be champions for a range of animal and plant species, with more information available here.
Juliet Caldwell
Species Champion Coordinator at Scottish Environment Link
The Manx shearwater is a beautiful and mysterious seabird. It feeds far from shore, only returning to its colonies at night – nesting in deep burrows, often at high altitude on inaccessible island mountainsides.
Because of this, shearwaters are notoriously difficult to study – but Scotland is home to around 40% of the entire world population. Yet over recent decades, at least ten Scottish shearwater breeding colonies have been lost. When rats or other predators are introduced, often unintentionally, by people onto islands, shearwater chicks are easy prey and breeding numbers fall.
Stories of human actions impacting wildlife and the climate are all too familiar. Climate change, however, brings new threats to species and habitats. Ongoing human pressures on biodiversity – like non-native mammal introductions on islands – are being compounded and intensified by the changing weather. In the marine environment, warming sea surface temperatures are driving profound changes in the biomass and species composition of plankton at the base of the food-web. Seabirds are top predators in that web, and the impacts are clear. The 2019 State of Nature report tells us that the average abundance of 12 breeding seabird species in Scotland declined by 38% between 1986 and 2019.
This is just one part of a much wider picture. Of all the Scottish species assessed in that report, 49% have declined in abundance, with one in nine at risk of national extinction. Across the world, species are being lost at a rate unprecedented in human history. Climate change is both a direct driver of this loss, but also a new context within which the other drivers – land-use change, pollution, over-exploitation, invasive species – operate and impact.
The global climate emergency and the ecological crisis are therefore deeply and inextricably linked together – and this simple truth must guide and frame our collective response. It means our approaches to the climate emergency must deliver both carbon answers and halt the biodiversity declines.
‘Nature-based Solutions’ to climate change is the term for this goal, now in common use around the world, and global thinking is developing on what sound principles for Nature-based Solutions are. They must be a vital part of the collective response but are not a substitute for rapid fossil fuel phase-out; they must protect and restore multiple ecosystems on land and sea; they must work with communities and build people’s capacity to adapt to climate change; and they must sustain or enhance biodiversity – which includes species that are not known to deliver direct carbon benefits.
2020 will be a pivotal moment in determining how we deliver those solutions – and two critical United Nations meetings are happening here in Scotland this year. In April, a major workshop in Edinburgh under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity will feed into new global targets for nature; and the UN Climate Summit in Glasgow will determine the global response to the climate emergency.
Scotland has an unprecedented opportunity to lead the way in delivering Nature-based Solutions to the climate crisis. Managing carbon in soils is a central challenge, and peatland habitats are now recognised as among the most important global soil carbon assets. Stopping their degradation and restoring them to good ecological health delivers direct carbon benefits but also supports and builds resilience in the unique wildlife communities in these habitats. With a long track record of effective collaboration and delivery of peatland restoration, and the Scottish Government showing real commitment on future funding, Scotland is becoming a global exemplar on peatlands.
If we can extend Nature-based Solutions across our ecosystems, though, we can become genuine world leaders. To do this, tree planting targets must deliver carbon storage alongside native woodland regeneration and better connectivity for our reduced and fragmented Celtic rainforests and Caledonian pinewoods; agriculture must be strategically supported to deliver for threatened wildlife together with sustainable soil and carbon management; saltmarshes, kelp forests, and seagrass beds must be restored and protected; and we need an invasive species inspectorate to implement biosecurity and best practice – protect peatlands and build resilience in seabirds and other species, so they can meet the climate challenges ahead.
Our climate change response must have ecological roots, and we must remember that complicated problems very often have complex solutions. We are already seeing Nature-based Solutions being re-framed by some actors as ‘Natural Climate Solutions’, or other similar, vague phrasing. If this language drift signals a priority shift moving nature away from the core of our climate responses to the fringes, our opportunity to lead could be missed – and our legacy to future generations deeply compromised. Yet, the identification that the solution to our crisis is in the preservation of our nature and biodiversity mean that there is the possibility we may, given uncompromising stamina and determination, have reason to hope.
Dr Paul Walton, Head of Habitats and Species at RSPB Scotland, and LINK Trustee
A version of this blog was printed in The Scotsman on 13 March 2020.
This year sees biodiversity placed at the forefront of the global sustainable development agenda. The theme of World Wildlife Day 2020; ‘Sustaining all Life on Earth’ encompasses all wild animal and plant species as key components of biodiversity as well as the livelihoods of people and is more important than ever in a time of climate emergency and nature crisis. It further highlights the importance of nature-based solutions in response to climate change, as well as supporting the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 1, 12, 14 and 15 and their wide-ranging commitments on preserving biodiversity.
Scottish Environment LINK welcomes the motion Gillian Martin MSP has lodged in celebration of World Wildlife Day 2020 on 3rd March. We urge all MSP Species Champions to support this motion, to stand up for their species and to call for action to address the twin climate and biodiversity emergencies in Scotland. As highlighted from the United Nations annual event, nearly a quarter of all species are presently at risk of going extinct in the coming decades.
The motion highlights the State of Nature Report 2019, by government agencies and leading wildlife organisations, which calls attention to how Scotland’s biodiversity is suffering from the impact of pressures such as habitat fragmentation, climate change and invasive non-native species. The State of Nature Scotland Report 2019 reveals that since recording began 49% of Scottish species have decreased and 28% have increased, that our nature is changing rapidly with 62% of species showing strong changes, and of the 6,413 species found in Scotland that have been assessed 11% have been classified as threatened with extinction from Scotland. Many of the species outlined in the report are represented by MSP Species Champions and findings from the report highlight the importance of initiatives like Species Champions in raising the profile of our most threatened species and demonstrating the importance of biodiversity in our environment.
The Species Champions initiative, coordinated by Scottish Environment LINK and supported by 20 LINK member organisations, aims to raise awareness and promote action in the Scottish Parliament, to safeguard Scotland’s most iconic and threatened species. Since its launch in 2013, the Species Champions initiative has gone from strength to strength: at the start of the current parliamentary session in 2016, 56 MSPs were signed up. Today, over halfway through the current parliament session, there are 104 MSP champions, representing 81 percent of the chamber. The success of the initiative is not only measured by the number of MSPs involved but also the influence MSP Champions have on safeguarding Scotland’s environment.
Species Champions initiative has been developed as an advocacy tool and has built a pro-active group of MSPs who are informed and passionate about nature in Scotland. Practical engagement activities, such as site visits, gives MSP champions the opportunity to participate in and learn about the conservation of their species, working with experts, volunteers and members of the community. The result of MSP Species Champions getting to know their species and the threats they face can encourage actions such as lodging motions or involvement in parliamentary debates that link their species to wider issues. 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. An increasingly knowledgeable, interested and pro-environment group of MSPs will have a demonstrable impact on issues right across the environmental agenda. This initiative provides a clear and accessible way for MSPs to do their bit for Scotland’s nature and future generations.
With 1 in 9 species at risk of extinction in Scotland, we need a strategic approach to protect our environment and ensure that our nature is healthy and thriving for future generations. We hope that Members of the Scottish Parliament, and in particular Species Champions MSPs, will stand up for nature and support strong and effective laws that will protect and enhance our environment.
They have called on the government to back up this commitment with legally binding targets for nature recovery and an action plan for delivery.
The charities, members of Scottish Environment LINK, also welcomed the announcement of a new environment watchdog to oversee compliance with environmental law, but cautioned that the new body must have real independence and power to protect Scotland’s iconic nature.
More than 30 organisations launched the Fight for Scotland’s Nature campaign in 2018, calling for an independent watchdog to enforce environmental protections after Brexit. The European Commission and Court of Justice previously played a key role in holding government to account on the environment, on issues ranging from air pollution to protections for marine animals.
The charities also welcomed the reiteration of the government’s commitment to embed crucial European environment principles in Scots law – another key demand of their campaign.
The charities believe the new watchdog must be independent of government and must have sufficient resources as well as the ability to investigate complaints from the public, charities and businesses, and to impose sanctions when standards are breached. Public support is strong – a recent opinion poll in Scotland found 81 percent of Leave voters and 91 percent of Remain voters supported a new body to provide continuing environmental oversight.
Charles Dundas, Chair of Scottish Environment LINK, said today:
It’s fantastic to see such a bold vision for the protection of Scotland’s environment, which, as the Scottish Government says, is fundamental to our future. Now we need to see the strategy backed up with clear, binding targets for the recovery of our amazing nature.
“It’s also great news that the government plans to set up a new environment watchdog. We look forward to seeing the full details, and trust MSPs will scrutinise these closely. It’s essential that citizens are able to hold government to account. We need a watchdog with teeth: real independence, the power to enforce protections, and the people, expertise and funds to do the job.”
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