Highly Protected Marine Areas are areas of the sea that are placed under strict protection to support ecosystem recovery and protect against climate change.
The Scottish Government has committed to giving a small proportion – just 10% – of our seas this strict protection. This is in line with international recommendations for nature recovery and resilience and follows the EU’s own 10% target for strict protection.
HPMAs are well-established globally and proven to have ecological benefits, which in turn can benefit fishers. The success of the ‘no-take zone’ (an area where no fishing is allowed, equivalent to an HPMA) of Carry-le-Rouet in the French Mediterranean, created in 1983, led to the fishing industry playing a key role in the establishment of a second HPMA nearby, the reserve of La Couronne.
Why do we need HPMAs in Scottish seas?
We are facing a twin nature and climate crisis, and nature’s recovery must be central to government priorities and policies. In its latest report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that the impact of climate change was increasingly irreversible and called for every country and sector to take drastic action on all fronts to tackle the climate crisis. Last year, the UN Secretary General declared an “Ocean Emergency” and called for collective and urgent action to restore marine life.
In Scotland, the health of our seas is vital for communities who rely on marine activities like fishing and wildlife tourism. However, evidence shows a continuing deterioration of marine ecosystems, and some of our living seabed habitats, such as seagrass, have suffered from catastrophic decline. UK administrations have collectively failed to achieve 11 out of 15 of the ‘Good Environmental Status’ targets set by the UK Marine Strategy, with seabird populations in particular continuing to decline.
Scotland’s Marine Assessment 2020 identified climate change and fishing activities that drag heavy nets across the seabed or through the water as the key pressures facing marine biodiversity.
If implemented alongside other sustainable management measures, HPMAs would provide Scotland with core zones for ecosystem recovery, helping us address the climate and nature crises and increasing our seas’ resilience to climate change. For thriving seas with healthy fish populations, we need an effective marine planning system that protects key areas, including HPMAs, so that Scotland’s seas can support species, habitats and communities.
How do HPMAs work?
HPMAs provide strong levels of protection to the marine environment by prohibiting all impacting or damaging activities in a small number of designated sites. Activities that remove or damage natural resources or that dump materials and pollutants in the sea are banned. The specific rules for Scotland’s HPMAs will be determined by the Scottish Government.
The recently published globalMPA Guide provides a helpful summary of what activities are or are not compatible with fully and highly protected areas.
HPMAs provide dedicated havens for vulnerable and depleted marine life to recover. Allowing fish, shellfish and other species to flourish in a fully protected area also benefits the many people and activities that rely upon healthy seas. The benefits from these areas overflow into surrounding waters, increasing the abundance and resilience of sea life, benefitting low impact fishing.
Analysis of the 24 no-take zones in the Mediterranean sea demonstrated that high levels of protection have significant ecological benefits for fish biomass and equally positive effects for fisheries’ target species. The total fish biomass and density were on average twice greater in fully protected areas than outside.
The community-led no take zone in Lamlash Bay off the Isle of Arran is Scotland’s only strictly protected area equivalent to a HPMA (as proposed in the recent Scottish Government consultation) and demonstrates on a small scale their potential for success. Biodiversity in the bay has increased by 50% since 2010, and the king scallop population more than trebled between 2013 and 2019. This has increased opportunities for low impact fishing and for scallop hand diving, benefitting the local economy.
Where will HPMAs be placed?
The Scottish Government is responsible for designating Scotland’s HPMA sites. Proposals will be informed and assessed by Scottish Government conservation advisors, NatureScot and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, who will suggest whether they meet the criteria to be designated as HPMAs. Proposals from organisations and members of the public will also be invited (‘third party proposals’), which will be assessed in the same way.
It is our view as members of Scottish Environment LINK that coastal, island and fishing communities should be closely involved in the process of designation as equal partners. An effective HPMA network should be spread across both inshore and offshore waters, in areas that have been degraded or that have the potential to recover to a more natural state, and should be designed to support both ecological and social sustainability.
Can HPMAs exist alongside a viable fishing industry?
Yes – HPMAs can support a sustainable fishing industry. Where there are designated ocean recovery zones, fish stocks will increase with spillover effects in neighbouring areas. The example of French fishermen working towards additional HPMAs after experiencing the benefits of no-take zones shows that this approach can bring significant benefits to industry itself.
Where else has HPMAs?
HPMAs are a key tool to enable the protection and recovery of marine ecosystems. Globally, the number and coverage of HPMAs are increasing. TheEU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 sets a target of ‘strict protection’ of 10% of the EU’s seas by 2030.
Various HPMAs can be found worldwide, and research demonstrates their benefits on marine life within and outside their boundaries. The MPA guide helpfully providesa map of 226 MPAs, 126 of which are under high levels of protection.
No-one knows more than the communities living around Scotland’s vast coastline how important and stunning our seas are. The health of the ocean, and particularly the seabed, is at the heart of sustaining communities reliant on wildlife tourism, fishing and aquaculture.
The ocean regulates half the oxygen we breathe. Our lives literally depend on it. It has absorbed more than 90 per cent of all the excess heat produced by society in recent decades. Despite this, the seabed has unfortunately been out of sight out of mind for most.
Globally, we’re in the midst of an ocean emergency. Areas of the ocean are becoming more acidic meaning shell-forming creatures struggle to create their shelters, other areas are becoming deoxygenated dead zones, and ocean nature is declining due to overfishing, ocean warming, inappropriate development, and a soup of plastic and invisible poisonous chemicals.
Despite this, all governments of the UK spectacularly failed to ensure our seas were in good environmental status by 2020, failing 11 of 15 targets including halting the loss of nature at sea.
Nine years after the first assessment required of the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010, Scottish Government scientists and advisers again highlighted that the condition of most of Scotland’s seabed was of great concern. Some living seabed habitats have declined by over 90 per cent in the space of only a few years.
The Bute House Agreement between the Scottish Government and Scottish Greens made welcome commitments to complete planned marine conservation measures, modernise inshore fisheries management more widely and commit to designating at least ten per cent of Scotland’s seas as Highly Protected Marine Areas (HPMAs).
Such areas have proven successful worldwide. They provide oases for vulnerable and depleted marine life to recover. Allowing fish, shellfish and other species to flourish in a fully protected area also benefits the many people and activities which rely upon healthy seas. The benefits from these areas overflow into surrounding waters, increasing the abundance and resilience of sea life. This overflow can benefit nearby low-impact fishing, such as angling, creeling and hand-diving, and other fishing beyond.
Protected areas also provide excellent places for people to simply celebrate their local blue space, to enjoy it and to learn about the role and value of ocean ecosystems. An excellent example of this is the pioneering Lamlash Bay Community Marine Conservation Area. Rolling out more such areas requires a holistic and integrated approach. The proposed HPMAs would need to protect a mix of inshore and offshore waters so that the benefits and trade-offs are spread around Scotland’s coasts.
The ocean emergency is real. Our seabed habitats are under threat, and populations of seabirds continue to decline. Highly protecting a modest ten per cent of the seabed from extractive, construction, and depositional activities, could help provide multiple wider benefits if managed well, and bring all communities of place and interest onboard.
HPMAs provide core ocean recovery zones with multiple benefits; they increase biodiversity, including of living reefs, lobsters and scallops, and increase the storage of carbon in living animals and seaweeds, and the seabed itself (blue carbon). They also improve protection of the coastline from storm damage and provide ocean beacons for research and enjoyment. HPMAs would create vibrant blue spaces for kayakers, wild swimmers, beach walkers, rockpoolers, divers, wildlife spotters and others to enjoy.
It is crucial that HPMAs are placed strategically to maximise community benefits. This includes having surrounding buffer zones for low-impact fishing, into which fish and shellfish can overspill, and identifying and protecting zones for appropriate levels of fishing in the wider seas.
Everyone wants to see healthy seas supporting abundant wildlife and thriving coastal communities. Done well, HPMAs can provide a win-win for all with a stake in the health of the ocean.
On his election as First Minister, Scottish Environment LINK has written to Humza Yousaf to congratulate him on his appointment, with the letter signed by 31 members of the environmental coalition. The letter urges strong leadership and action in a number of crucial areas, while acknowledging the progress already made in recent years, notably through the Edinburgh Declaration on biodiversity.
Scotland faces twin environmental crises of nature loss and climate change. The latest IPCC report, issued this month, made clear that humanity requires urgent action to protect our environment, and underlined the importance of restoring nature as part of this effort. A healthy environment with rich and diverse nature is fundamentally important to the health, wellbeing and prosperity of Scotland’s people. However, Scotland has suffered a high level of historic nature loss and this is accelerating further, with 1 in 9 species at risk of national extinction.
The letter calls on the First Minister to reaffirm the Scottish Government’s commitment to our natural environment across the following areas:
Nature protection and restoration
Farming and forestry
Circular economy
Just Transition and human rights
Scottish Environment LINK is the forum for Scotland’s voluntary environment community, with over 40 member bodies representing a broad spectrum of environmental interests with the common goal of contributing to a more environmentally sustainable society.
At the end of last year the European Environment Agency (EEA) published the report, ‘Circular Economy policy innovation and good practice in Member States’, which highlights areas of progress in countries across Europe. As well as good examples, the report examines the barriers and challenges which are shared across EU countries.
In this blog I have picked out some examples that caught my attention, as they highlight things Scotland could be doing, but isn’t.
It is no secret that consumption based targets with linked delivery plans are at the heart of Scottish Environment LINK’s, and our members’, circular economy demands.
The EEA report finds: ‘The number of EU Member States that use consumption based indicators, such as RMC (Raw Material Consumption) and the material footprint, has increased considerably to 12 (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, FinIand, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Slovakia), compared to just five countries at the time of the last survey in 2019.’
And ‘…. early CE [circular economy] adopters, such as Belgium, Finland and the Netherlands, are following up their first policies (2016–2017) by active (sectorial) stakeholder involvement through, for example, strategic/transition agendas to identify finance and implement concrete CE measures’.
So Scotland, which in the past has been counted among the forerunners in moving towards a more circular economy, has some catching up to do. With Scotland’s circular economy strategy Making Things Last published in 2016, we should be well on the way to comprehensive sectoral plans laying out concrete agendas. Although work has been going on to support circularity in different sectors, a comprehensive approach has been sorely missing.
The forthcoming Circular Economy Bill and route map bring some hope, but the danger is that time frames stretch and in the meantime the Scottish economy continues to hoover up raw materials at a rate that is incompatible with global carbon and nature goals and Scotland’s position on international justice. We need the Circular Economy Bill to set consumption based targets as soon as possible, following the leaders in Europe. Scotland’s Material Flow Accounts show us that our raw material consumption is currently nearly treble what is widely considered a sustainable level.
We often hear that it is pointless setting targets without the plans to deliver them. I would argue that the targets are needed to drive the development of the plans. Scotland did not wait for delivery plans to set the climate change targets – the targets were set and the delivery plans have followed, in the shape of the Climate Change Plans. The same approach should be used for addressing our consumption impacts.
There are many innovative ideas, examples of good practice, and individuals willing to be involved in developing plans to reduce our material consumption. If the Scottish Government is unsure about pathways, measures set out in Scotland’s Circularity Gap report add up to a reduction of about 43% in our material and carbon footprints.
Other specific initiatives which I noted from the report include the following.
Procurement: In Denmark, there is mandatory use of total cost of ownership in state procurement for specific product groups, so that the running costs, maintenance costs and disposal costs are all factored in. In this way, the focus will shift from the acquisition price to costs throughout a product’s lifecycle. The requirement will initially apply to 25 product groups with further groups to be added. In France, legislation requires that a percentage of goods acquired annually by central and local authorities must come from reuse or incorporate recycled materials. There is list of products to which this applies, including laptops, paper, desk furniture and textiles.
Construction: In Denmark, the government introduced a decreasing mandatory threshold limit for climate footprints based on whole life-cycle analysis – the emissions associated with all phases of the building’s life (material sourcing, construction, use and after-use) for new buildings in the Building Code. Luxembourg introduced an obligation to submit a digital material inventory for new construction.
Repair: The Austrian Repair Bonus introduced a voucher which provides a 50 % discount (with a limit) to consumers for repairs to electrical and electronic devices commonly used in households. In the first few months of the scheme, 63,400 vouchers had been cashed in 2,300 participating repair businesses.
Reuse: In Flanders, Belgium, in March 2022, about 80 organisations signed the Green Deal Anders Verpakt. Stakeholders are shifting the focus from increasing the collection and recycling of waste to prevention, omitting packaging, and the reuse of packaging. The Green Deal focusses on a chain approach in which companies, governments, knowledge institutions and citizens work together towards common objectives.
The impact of implementing measures like these in Scotland would be significant. Scottish Environment LINK wants to see some real change on the ground in Scotland that will address our over-consumption. We need consumption targets and transition sector plans to drive a comprehensive approach, but we also can and need to get one with more and bigger concrete measures if we are going to make the difference that is so sorely needed.
By Alistair Whyte, head of Plantlife Scotland and convenor of Scottish Environment LINK’s wildlife group
The natural environment is important to 92% of Scots, according to a recent poll commissioned by Scottish Environment LINK. That’s a high figure, but it didn’t come as a surprise to me. Surely almost all of us have a sense of pride in Scotland’s landscapes and wildlife – in our eagles, pine forests, and wave-battered coastlines.
I think our connection to Scotland’s wildlife runs deeper than those picture-postcard images. Nature and culture are intrinsically linked here, not least because the way we manage the land has given rise to some of our most wildlife-rich habitats. What we eat and drink is bound up with the health of the land and seas that produce it. And the events of the last three years brought into stark relief the importance of accessible natural spaces for everyone.
This means it can be hard to get our heads around some depressing statistics about the state of Scotland’s environment. But the science points towards a nature crisis, right here. Survey after survey tells us that our wildlife is not faring well. And the Biodiversity Intactness Index, an internationally-adopted measure of biodiversity, puts the UK in the lowest 12% of countries. Whilst Scotland performs better than the other UK countries, all four countries sit close to the bottom of this biodiversity league table. Put simply, Scotland’s wildlife and habitats are a shadow of their former selves.
For a long time, Scotland’s environmental groups have been calling for a meaningful plan for nature recovery. This plan must be ambitious, and must focus not just on nature protection, but, crucially, on restoration. Our battered, beleaguered ecosystems need to be rebuilt if they are to function properly.
Restoring ecosystems means restoring all the building blocks of those ecosystems – which means we need a targeted programme of species recovery to sit alongside these ambitious ecosystem restoration proposals.
In December of last year, the Scottish Government published its draft Scottish Biodiversity Strategy to 2045. The strategy outlines key outcomes to be achieved by 2045 – but for these high level outcomes, and the series of priority actions which follow, more detail about how they’re going to be achieved is critical, alongside targets which will demonstrate success. These targets must be legally-binding, and integrated into all government delivery. If it lacks this accountability, the strategy stands a good chance of gathering dust on a shelf in the library of good intentions.
Greater ambition on species recovery is essential – without this, there’s a real risk that, even if our ecosystems recover, some of our most iconic species will slip away. We can’t allow this to happen.
All this talk of targets and plans can seem a million miles away from the glint of an Atlantic salmon running a Highland river, or the rich, vibrant patchwork of the Hebridean machair. But the fate of those things rests hugely on the actions of government over the next few months and years. Scotland could be a world leader in biodiversity recovery. For a nation that values its natural environment so highly, that feels like a pretty good place to aim.
It’s now a month since COP15 in Montreal. The COP15 summit gave us commitments to global nature targets to halt the loss of nature by 2030 and to restore it by 2050. We also saw commitments to conserve and manage 30% of the Earth’s land and seas for nature; halt the extinction of known species, pledges to halve the risk from pesticides and nutrient loss, reduce to near zero the loss of wildlife rich habitats and to reduce government subsides that harm nature. These are big promises – and it is absolutely necessary that we fulfil them.
We already know we need to reach net zero by 2045 in Scotland. Now, we also know we need to have reversed and restored nature to be nature positive by 2050. That means doing things differently, implementing actions swiftly and aligning them so that actions for climate do not damage nature.
The global leadership from Montreal is important in setting a direction of travel. We will only walk that path however, if we all commit to supporting necessary action, and this is going to mean tough choices: tougher than flying less and phasing out fossil fuel, which are going to seem rather easy in comparison.
Beyond the headlines, what we need now are effective actions. Targets are important but what really counts is delivery. What will that look like in Scotland? It will need to look a bit like this:
Creating Nature networks to restore and protect our habitats, building wider ecosystem resilience to change. We do this through planning reform, land use planning and land use support as well as action on the ground.
Managing our wider landscapes and seas for biodiversity: deer numbers at levels that do not irrevocably damage their habitats, about 5 deer per km, and fishing that does not diminish and weaken fish populations.
Investment in nature restoration at habitat and species level: improving the quality of habitats like river woodlands, mountain woodlands, species rich grasslands and upland heaths for example. Rebuilding species populations to levels where they can sustain themselves: species like twinflower, juniper, curlew and lapwing, freshwater pearl mussel and dark bordered beauty moth.
Getting real about private investment in nature: recognising the risks of greenwashing and the traps of credits; being strategic about using public funding to kick start initiatives and fill in funding gaps
Protecting ecosystems from the main drivers of loss: pollution, habitat fragmentation and loss, over exploitation.
Reforming farming subsidy: shifting subsidy to nature and climate positive action, nature positive food production and away from damaging activities.
COP15 wasn’t really about agreeing action on the ground though. It was more about a strategic approach to ensuring action on the ground is effective to save nature. Success will depend on nature being right at the heart of government, in all parliamentary portfolios and at the forefront of the development of all government policy so we can all do our bit for nature.
To get there, we need leadership on biodiversity. Where will this leadership come from? It needs to come not just from Ministers, politicians and government: it needs to come from all of us. From young people who want to be able to see nature on their doorstep in decades to come, from grandparents who want their grandchildren to enjoy the wonder of nature just as they did as children and from society at large, who loves nature and wants to keep connecting with nature. This is no white flag: this needs to be our battle cry.
The publication of the draft Scottish Government Budget 2023/2024 prompts another look at what gets spent, in real terms, on core environmental protection and management in Scotland. The plot below (Fig.1) shows that from financial year 2010/11 through to the current proposal for 2023/24, there continues to be sustained underfunding.
This period is chosen as it marks the beginning of the public sector austerity measures, following the global financial crisis of 2008.
Both NatureScot (formerly SNH) and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) receive core funding, each year, for their operational activities. Notwithstanding small increases this year, the funding for NatureScot has declined by 40% over the period. For SEPA the reduction is currently about 20% but has, just a few years ago, been as much as 40% as well.
The Scottish Government also contracts out policy-driven and policy-related environmental research to gather scientific evidence and find innovative solutions to our pressing problems. This is delivered through a rolling, tendered, and competitive, core programme which, in effect, underpins the research capability of major providers like the James Hutton Institute, Moredun and Scotland’s Rural College, as well as funding several multi-partner Centres of Expertise, such as CREW, for water management, and ClimateXChange, for climate policy. This research budget has declined by almost 60%, in real terms, over the past 13 years.
The graph below shows that spending in these areas has been disproportionately cut in comparison to the overall Scottish budget. While some increases to the overall budget reflect the devolution of additional powers, and subsequently pandemic-related spending, this does not explain why these environmental agencies have been deprioritised over this period.
It’s worth noting that trimming this environmental spend in Scotland has actually delivered less than 0.2% savings in the overall Government budget. As a proportion, the three environmental components shown here declined from 0.55% of total Scottish budget in 2010/11 to a minimum of 0.25% in 2022/23.
Fig.1 Normalised, to financial year 2010/11, real-term, budgets for the public environment research programme, for NatureScot, SEPA, and total Scottish Government. Source budget summary & updated from yearly budgets.
The research providers, of course, have the opportunity to bid elsewhere for competitive research grants and, on the whole, are very successful in bringing inward investment and added value to the science base. The Scottish Government funds, however, are focused specifically on Scottish environmental issues that support Scottish policy and deliver public good. Other research funds are not locally focused and, for example, those from the European Commission are now seriously jeopardised by Brexit.
SEPA derives around half of its income from separate cost-recovery schemes, with charges imposed on businesses who hold licences to discharge to the environment. These charging schemes are approved by the Scottish Government and have not always kept pace with inflation. In 2010/11 this income was £34.1M and in 2020/21 was £42.0M, a real-term reduction of 14%.
These deep, and prolonged, cuts have an inevitable impact on staffing. For example, NatureScot had 728 staff in 2011/12 and only 594 staff in 2020/21. The search for a new NatureScot Chair began this week and one of the first issues she or he will have to deal with is how to address the lack of resources for the body charged with addressing the nature crisis. High quality environmental regulation and management cannot be delivered without professional staff, using sound science, informed by robust research and evidence. During periods of financial constraint, it is all too easy to delay building maintenance, to cut training and quality management systems, to delay replacement or upgrading of equipment, limit site visits, and reduce monitoring. In the short term this may be inevitable but, in the longer term, it undermines the capability to deliver operationally well-informed solutions. As cuts continue, then excessive management time is devoted to further cost reductions, restructuring and reorganisation, closure of premises, and ultimately delivering voluntary severance programmes. All this detracts from core duties and increases operational risks.
At the same time, Scotland’s environment is deteriorating. Almost 50% of ecosystem services are in decline; the percentage of nature protected sites in favourable condition has declined from 80% in 2017 to 78.3% in 2021; the index of terrestrial species abundance slumped from 98 in 2010 to 68.7 in 2016; Scotland is ranked 212 out of 240 countries for biodiversity intactness; the reported ecological status of Scotland’s rivers has dropped.
So, has wider environmental concern been refocused by Scottish Government away from the “nature crisis” towards the “climate emergency”? The Scottish Government puts the nature and climate crises side by side and requires climate mitigation and adaptation in every routine budget and work programme. Despite this, however, a recent report shows that total emissions associated with the Scottish Budget for 2023-24 will be 8.8Mt carbon dioxide equivalent, which is higher than in 2010-11. This is reflected in the recent progress report from the UK Climate Change Committee, which says “The Scottish Government lacks a clear delivery plan and has not offered a coherent explanation for how its policies will achieve Scotland’s bold emissions reduction targets”.
Scottish Government states that “Scotland’s natural environment is central to our identity as a nation” that “we will play our full part in responding to the global climate and nature crises” and “through our work, our country will be transformed for the better. Our natural environment will be restored.”
As LINK has stated, Scotland needs more robust environmental scrutiny, audit, challenge, targets, funding most certainly, and formalised accountability and delivery to do that.
Contributed by one of LINK’s Honorary Fellows, this blog provides analysis of budget allocation to the environment sector in 2023 – 2024.
From one of LINK’s Honorary Fellows, Claudia Beamish
On this bright day which augers spring, I pottered in the back garden amongst a range of peeking bulbs, budding shrubs and fruit trees. There the breeze stirred my autumn-long pondering on why COP27 caught the headlines while COP15 did not?
The twin crises – nature and climate – are inextricably fused.
Check out the first day of COP15 from the protest by people of the Talama Nation on Canada’s W Coast – appropriately recognized– in President Trudeau’s opening speech to UN Secretary General Guterres’s stark warnings.
So – robust targets were reached. Good. Though COP 15 is left to grow without the support, regulation and commitment of 27. Planning, monitoring and money will be at the heart of success or failure – to state the obvious. To do whatever can be done to keep the life giving support of mass public awareness on the cause of COP 15 is year round work. Protecting and rebuilding biodiversity goes hand-in-hand with tackling climate change. Instead, big business mutes the importance of biodiversity; monopolistic homogeneity is profitable and damn the socio-economic and environmental consequences!
On the Convention on Biodiversity website in the Poverty Reduction section, we are reminded that “Socio-political aspects of inequality, including gender and ethnicity, are inextricably linked with the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. This is because indigenous peoples and local communities and women are important custodians of biodiversity and related traditional knowledge, although they are often marginalized and disadvantaged.
“The role of law and equity to manage nature contributes to an inclusive society based on justice and democratic decision-making. Recognizing rights to sustainable management of natural resources, enhancing values of biodiversity and related knowledge, and building an environment for equitable benefit-sharing has the potential to improve socioeconomic and political inequality among social groups.”
The interlinks are infinite and demand permanently ongoing action. Check out – “Biodiversity and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”. Today it feels a long while since marching in Edinburgh for the Millennium Goals. Plus ca change! In relation to nature and climate justice, we have an obligation to assess the impact of what we do on the Global South and perhaps even to assess how we can help improve global biodiversity as we work on national and local projects.
Needless to say the failures of biodiversity action deeply affect people here in Scotland as well.
As I muse on inspiring projects from the macro – continuing to develop the National Ecological Network, to the micro – planting fruit trees around a rugby pitch in Fintry, I am keenly aware of the importance of community involvement. Let’s face it – our health and wellbeing ain’t great! However, fresh air and tending the soil can work what might feel like miracles for our psyche and for native seedlings!
The challenges of the Cop15 2030 Targets can feel deeply daunting. However, what ScotLINK and communities are doing and can do even more of, will bite out a big chunk of negativity and connect us all better to our land in the working together.
In recent months the term ‘nature positive economy’ is being used more and more in recognition that our economy has a huge role to play in achieving the goal to be nature positive by 2030. To strive for a nature positive economy is included in Scotland’s National strategy for economic transformation (2022).
Little has been written about what this actually means in terms of modifying the way our economy operates, although the Dasgupta Review provides a useful start by highlighting a number of areas where change is needed.
A recent event hosted by entitled ‘Making the economy work for nature’, provided a number of observations on priorities and perspectives.
Opening remarks from Professor Yadvinder Malhi, president of the British Ecological Society, stressed that we need to think about how to reconcile our economy with living on a finite planet and that a circular economy offers a way forward by drawing less resources into the economy and pumping less waste into the environment. This is supported by the recent report Tackling root causes, which reveals that circular solutions have significant potential to halt biodiversity loss.
Speakers at the event largely focussed on food and farming and care for our soils – the biological side of the well known circular economy butterfly diagram. It was noted that the largely linear economy has led to a broken carbon cycle and restoring that carbon cycle to a more circular one would be good for climate and biodiversity. It was pointed out that far more attention needs to be paid to the status of soils. As a key element of natural capital, a natural asset fundamental to our economy and wellbeing, we need to understand the health and status of soil. Currently we do not monitor our soils in the same way as we monitor air and water.
In relation to food production, work by the Ellen McArthur Foundation which has shown huge opportunities to redesign food production to regenerate nature with a more circular economy was presented. The principles of circular economy and food design can be brought together such that food is good for nature and climate by focussing on lower impact ingredients (such as pea flour instead of wheat flour, or syrup from sucrose extracted from crop residue); use of wider varieties to build resilience; and regenerative systems. Modelling shows economic and environmental benefits.
The potential for farms in Scotland to diversify and make use of by-products was highlighted as was the potential for regenerative practices to deliver yields comparable to conventional farming.
Despite these opportunities, real barriers in Scotland were pointed out. For example, the vast majority of livestock are farmed on the west whereas crops are gown in the east which makes closing the nitrogen cycle difficult. What’s more, much of the food we produce is for export, which impacts on and hinders efforts to become circular.
Looking more broadly at our economy and decision making, hidden assumptions embedded into our economic system and thinking which have become barriers to change were highlighted. First, the assumptions that the economy and nature are separate and that nature will ‘replenish itself’. Second, the way in which appraisals of potential projects or policies are carried out, including: a baseline scenario of ‘business as usual’ as an option (when carrying on as we are is not an option); omitting to consider the distribution of costs and benefits; and discounting (the process of converting a value received in the future to an equivalent present day value) and the assumption that future generations will be better equipped to deal with problems.
Panellists were asked to provide thoughts on how we change the system. Change in the way we incentivise agriculture was highlighted as key, as was the promotion of good practice. Working with big businesses, some of whom are taking strides to put nature at the heart of what they do, and developing partnerships was also noted. There was a call for politicians to be bolder and not to rely on markets to solve the problem.
This is a useful reminder – the economic (as well as other) opportunities associated with the circular economy are often highlighted; but this should not be an excuse for lack of political leadership. Without significant changes to accounting and decision making rules/ processes, the market won’t address the nature crises.
LINK has been working on circular economy for several years and, amongst other things, has been highlighting to government that soils, the cornerstone of a circular and regenerative economy, need more attention. In the next 6 months the Scottish Government will be bringing forward its Circular Economy Bill – this is an opportunity to make sure the legislation is in place to steer our economy to one that is more circular, with reduced footprints and working for nature. LINK’s Farm for Scotland’s Future campaign is pressing for reform to support for farmers such that farming works for nature, climate and people.
This blog was written by Phoebe Cochrane, LINK’s Sustainable Economy Policy Officer
The final weeks of 2022 saw a historic, if much delayed, global agreement for biodiversity reached at COP15 in Montreal, with a central pledge to protect 30% of the planet by the end of the decade.
If we needed a reminder of the scale of the challenge, the record-breaking warm weather across Europe in the first days of January should have been it.
The planet is deep into an ecological emergency and we are long past the time when bold promises for action can be delayed decades into the future.
A 2030 target for nature protection should, hopefully, help shake some complacency from those policymakers across the planet who perennially treat the environment as a problem to deal with tomorrow.
Scotland had adopted the ‘30 by 30’ commitment ahead of COP15 and the Scottish Biodiversity Strategy – published at the Montreal summit – sets the high-level aspirations for our approach to nature between now and 2045, including an ambition to be “nature positive” by 2030.
These goals are welcome, but meeting them will not be without challenges – not least, time.
2030 is not far off. We are rapidly approaching the mid-way point of the decade, and meaningful change will depend on the decisions being made today.
Crucially, the detail of how the Scottish Government intends to meet those ambitions will be set out in five year delivery plans, the first of which will be consulted on soon.
LINK recently commissioned opinion polling to measure public attitudes towards nature and key policy areas. The results should give Ministers confidence that the public will support ambitious action.
More than 80% say that they are worried about the impact of climate change and human activity on nature, and almost unanimously (96%) Scots say our natural environment is important to the country as a whole. Overwhelming majorities support pro-environmental policies such as ‘30 by 30’, prioritising native woodlands, and making sure that farm funding delivers for the planet.
The public know we’re in a crisis – and they want the government to act. 2023 should be the year where we begin to turn the corner for nature.
Dan Paris, Advocacy Manager at LINK
Image: Simon Jones
This blog is part of the LINK Thinks COP15 series. Click here to read the series of blogs by LINK staff, members and Honorary Fellows who will be highlighting the importance of targeted action in protecting and restoring our precious nature over the course of the conference.
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