Scottish Environment LINK has joined more than 85 civil society organisations in signing an open letter to the Prime Minister expressing grave concerns about the impact of a no-deal Brexit.
You can read the letter here. For more information, visit the Brexit Civil Society Alliance.
Read our blog, ‘A No Deal Brexit is No Good for Scotland’s Environment‘, published back in March.
By Deborah Long, chief officer of Scottish Environment LINK
In June, LINK brought together 97 organisations to write to the First Minister to ask her to take action to protect, enhance and restore our environment – as the best insurance against climate change and to provide subsequent generations with a sustainable future. You can read our letter here. This was in the context of her declaration of a climate emergency and the need to act.
You can read the First Minister’s reply here.
Today’s climate and ecological emergencies are inextricably linked, and working to tackle one contributes to tackling the other. And it is clear that time to act is running out: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) gives us 10 years to cut carbon emissions, while a major UN report on biodiversity estimates that 1 million species are at risk of extinction.
Species and habitat diversity, within fully functioning ecosystems, are essential for our future resilience, offering us protection against dramatic climate events such as flooding, and against major epidemics amongst humans and the crops we rely on.
We all know what’s at stake: younger generations are pointing the finger at politicians and other adults in positions to do something about these emergencies. It is time for the talking to lead to effective action.
Scotland trades on its image as a country with a clean and vibrant natural environment. But that environment, although green on the outside, is not as healthy as it could be: species are declining at sea and on land, habitats are fragmenting, soils are degrading. We need to reverse all of this if we are to face and survive climate change.
Scotland could lead the world, but we need political leadership and the will to make some tough choices in favour of the natural environment now. That means within the next 10 years.
This is actually possible in Scotland. The First Minister’s reply to our letter underlines her government’s commitment to introduce new legislation for Scotland’s environment. It reiterates her, and the Scottish Government’s, recognition of the importance of the natural environment and their responsibility to it. The recognition that the challenges facing biodiversity are as important as the challenge of climate change is also very welcome, as is the ambition for Scotland to lead the way.
Scotland has made a positive start with the target to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045. We look forward to the government’s own analysis of Scotland’s action towards the Global Biodiversity Targets, and to the State of Nature partnership’s analysis of trends leading up to 2020. These reports will inform us on how much progress we have made, and what we must do before the targets are revised in 2020 as part of the next meeting on the Convention of Biodiversity in China in 2020.
And Scotland has made progress in relation to proposed legislation to ban plastic cotton buds and introduce a deposit return scheme, along with woodland planting and peatland restoration. However, within the time scale we have and against the challenges that remain, we are still not doing enough, nor are we doing it quickly enough.
Brexit and whatever follows cannot derail our ambition and focus on the emergency of climate change and the ecological crisis.
LINK believes that the most efficient way of enabling and supporting this non-negotiably vital work is through a Scottish Environment Act. Such an act needs to include a truly independent, well-resourced and empowered watchdog, and must require the delivery of a strategy and the setting of targets against which progress can be judged.
While the environment strategy being developed by the Scottish Government is welcome, unless it is underpinned by effective legislation it will be unable on its own to bring about the changes we need to see. We already have strategies that if enacted effectively could have been reversing some of the negative trends. The Biodiversity Strategy launched in 2004 and the Land Use Strategy launched in 2011 are both forward-looking in their approach, but neither are being implemented or enforced in a way that makes any significant change happen.
We cannot afford to wait any longer. Now is the time to act, with a strong and comprehensive Environment Bill developed this autumn and winter for introduction to Parliament by Easter 2020. That would enable Scotland to be world leading, at the time when Scotland’s people need it and when the world focuses on biodiversity conservation as the 2020 targets are renewed, and when significant progress towards net zero needs to be underway.
We look forward to working with Ministers and the Scottish Government to achieve our shared ambitions for the environment. We’ll be looking at the Government’s plans for the next 12 months to see how far we can get together in the fight against climate change and for nature.
Stand up for the nature you love! Is it bumblebees in your local park? Puffins in the Firth of Forth? Oak trees on the banks of Loch Lomond?
Join the Fight for Scotland’s Nature by tweeting your nature pictures or videos to Nicola Sturgeon.
1/ Take a photo or video of what you love. Maybe you’re in the picture too.
2/ Tweet your picture or video to Nicola Sturgeon on @ScotGovFM using the hashtag #FightForScotlandsNature.
https://twitter.com/CalumLangdale/status/1153327406763008000?s=20
https://twitter.com/PeteHaskell/status/1153961960372916224?s=20
Don’t have a picture? Write the name of what you’re standing up for on a piece of paper and take a selfie of yourself with it.
Search for #FightForScotlandsNature on Twitter to see what others are standing up for!
© Charlie Phillips
Published in the Scotsman on 24 July
If our natural environment is being harmed, and our government fails in its duty to protect it, who can we turn to?
In 2012, conservation group WWF complained to the European Commission that the UK government hadn’t set up any protected areas for the harbour porpoise.
With its chunky body, triangular fin and slow rolling motion, the harbour porpoise is found throughout Scotland’s coastal waters. But chemical and noise pollution both pose significant threats to our smallest cetacean. In British seas as a whole, more than 1,500 porpoises are estimated to die each year through entanglement in fishing gear.The harbour porpoise is protected under the EU Habitats Directive, which means the UK is legally obliged to set aside areas of sea where it will be allowed to thrive. Following the WWF complaint, the UK and Scottish governments have together proposed six new special areas for the porpoise, including one in Scotland, in the Inner Hebrides and Minches.
Environmental protections are only as strong as the institutions that uphold them. On leaving the EU, Scotland and the rest of the UK will lose the oversight and enforcement roles of the European Commission, European Court of Justice and other EU bodies.
These institutions have played an invaluable role in giving the public a voice and holding governments to account on environmental matters. As well as monitoring and reporting on the state of the environment and investigating potential breaches of environmental laws, together they can ensure enforcement and apply sanctions on governments that don’t comply. Their power stems from the fact that they are independent of national governments.
The Scottish Government has acknowledged that losing the oversight of these EU bodies will create a large hole in the defences with which we can protect Scotland’s environment. But so far it has said little about how that hole might be filled.
A campaign led by a coalition of environmental charities is calling for a Scottish Environment Act to ensure that any exit from the EU does not unravel these protections.
One of the key things we want an Act to do is establish a new watchdog to monitor Scotland’s natural environment and hold government to account in looking after it. Crucially, a watchdog must have what no existing body in Scotland has: the power, resources and independence to effectively police the government on environmental matters.
The Fight for Scotland’s Nature campaign also wants an Environment Act to embed EU environmental principles in Scots law, and to set clear, legally-binding targets for the protection and recovery of Scotland’s nature, as well as making funds available to ensure targets can be met.
A Scottish Environment Act would help underpin the transformative action required to tackle the joint emergencies of biodiversity loss and climate breakdown.
Scotland’s people, as well as wildlife like the harbour porpoise, need strong, effective environmental protections. The quality of the air we breathe is one of the most obvious examples of a standard we need governments to uphold. But levels of nitrogen dioxide, mostly from diesel vehicles, have been illegally high in many UK cities and towns for almost a decade. Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee all have streets that break legal limits. It’s estimated that air pollution causes 2,500 early deaths in Scotland every year.
Last year, following action by environmental lawyers Client Earth, Friends of the Earth Scotland and other organisations, the UK government was referred to the European Court of Justice for repeatedly failing to tackle air pollution. It could face substantial fines if it fails to comply.
At present, our air quality laws come from the EU. But after Brexit, in line with devolution, setting and implementing air quality laws would be the responsibility of the Scottish Government – making an environmental watchdog that is specific to Scotland all the more necessary.
Air quality is not alone. Most of our domestic environmental protections stem from EU laws, meaning that there is broad scope for citizens and charities to submit complaints to the European Commission where they see a failure to meet environmental standards. Unlike a UK court case, this complaints process is affordable. Another major advantage is that it allows cases to be judged on merit, whereas an appeal in UK courts can only look at procedural errors.
The EU has played an overwhelmingly positive role in safeguarding Scotland’s natural environment. But whatever our future relationship with the EU, Scotland can retain and build upon current protections through a Scottish Environment Act that sets us on a clear path to a sustainable future. An independent watchdog that holds government to account and gives citizens recourse to justice must be a central component.
Miriam Ross is coordinator of the Fight for Scotland’s Nature campaign at Scottish Environment LINK.
EU environmental principles have helped us effectively address environmental issues in a systematic way. They have been fundamental to ensuring consistent decision-making, and therefore providing greater certainty for business and others, as well as ensuring that the way in which we protect our natural wealth and seek to rectify environmental harm is effective and targeted. Whether we are dealing with air pollution, water quality or the protection of our wildlife, EU environmental principles, often stemming from international conventions, have been integral to setting and enforcing environmental standards.
The potential of the UK exiting the EU means that we stand to lose the protection provided by those principles. Unless action is taken, we may find ourselves in the midst of what is now openly acknowledged as a twin climate and nature emergency without key tools that up until now have helped us relieve pressures on our environment.
One such key environmental principle is the principle of ‘rectification at source’. This principle provides us with the ‘how’ in terms of addressing environmental problems. It seeks to ensure that policies and laws regulate pollution at its source rather than remedy its effects.
This may sound obvious, but a simple example would be our approach to improving indoor air quality. One option for improving indoor air quality, if pollutants were found in high concentrations, would be to invest in air filters. But that only masks the problem and does not tackle the underlying issue – namely that the air is unhealthy. In other words, it does not address the root of the problem. If the principle of rectification at source was applied in this instance, the logical thing to do would be to identify the source (whether an object or activity) which pollutes the air and regulate that.
Simply put, this principle guides the regulation of pollution from its source rather than in the wider environment. It helps us prioritise how we should best address environmental harm, and what are the top actions which we should take to redress it.
The concept of rectifying pollution or environmental damage at source also helps us trace back damaging activities to the actual polluter too. This makes it easier for authorities to ensure that polluters pay for the environmental harm that they have caused.
If applied consistently, this principle can drive cleaner processes and products which are inherently good for the environment rather than approaches which treat the problem as or after it occurs.
The principle that environmental damage should be rectified at source is embedded in EU treaties and often reflected in domestic laws. However, to ensure that this principle, as well as all other EU environmental principles, have the same practical effect in Scotland even if Brexit materialises, we need those principles embedded in Scots law. This could be achieved through a dedicated Scottish Environment Act.
Ninety-seven organisations from across Scottish society have written to Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon calling for a Scottish Environment Act. Download the letter here, or read the text in full below.
The First Minister
The Scottish Government
St Andrew’s House
Regent Road
Edinburgh
EH1 3DG
27 June 2019
Dear First Minister,
As you recently acknowledged, our planet faces a climate emergency. Inextricably linked to this emergency is looming ecological disaster. Time is running out to tackle these huge global challenges. It will take concerted, radical action from leaders around the world to pave the way for transformative change in line with our sustainable development commitments.
We must not let Brexit derail us from tackling these twin problems head on. Whatever the outcome of the current political uncertainties we must set robust, binding targets for nature’s recovery, to safeguard both Scotland’s nature and its people.
This is why we, the undersigned, have come together from across society to ask you to bring forward a new Scottish Environment Act, a step which has already been supported by 22,000 members of the public through the Fight for Scotland’s Nature campaign.
Ensuring our world is rich in nature is the best insurance we have against dangerous climate heating. Protecting, restoring and enhancing Scotland’s environment will help to limit temperature increases and help to adapt to some changes that we already cannot avoid.
Restoring Scotland’s natural world to its full potential would give us so much more than insulation against climate change.
Everyone has the right to a clean and healthy environment. Nature enriches people’s lives. It cleans our air and our water, improves our physical and mental health, underpins Scotland’s global image and exports, and improves the places we live.
For all of these reasons, we believe your Government should put forward a new Scottish Environment Act that makes Scotland’s vision to be an environmental world leader a reality.
Yours sincerely,
Aberlour Children’s Charity
Amphibian and Reptile Conservation
Association for the Protection of Rural Scotland
Badenoch and Strathspey Conservation Group
Bat Conservation Trust
British Dragonfly Society
British Ecological Society – Scottish Policy Group
Buglife – The Invertebrate Conservation Trust
Bumblebee Conservation Trust
Butterfly Conservation Scotland
Cairngorms Campaign
Carnegie UK Trust
Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management
Clean Coast Outer Hebrides
Coastal Communities Network
Community Resources Network Scotland
Dingwall Wind Co-op
Dumfries and Galloway Badger Network
EAUC – Alliance for Sustainability Leadership in Education
Edinburgh and Lothians Greenspace Trust
Fair Trade Scotland
Fernaig Community Trust
Fidra
Fintry Development Trust
Friends of the Earth Scotland
Friends of the Earth West Fife
Froglife Trust (Scotland)
Greener Melrose
Greenpeace UK
Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust
Human Rights Consortium
Huntly & District Swift Group
Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment
Islay Development Initiative
John Muir Trust
Keep Scotland Beautiful
Learning for Sustainability Scotland
Leith Community Crops in Pots
Marine Conservation Society
Mountaineering Scotland
National Trust for Scotland
North East Mountain Trust
North West Mull Community Woodland Company
Nourish Scotland
Paths for All
Permaculture Scotland
Permeate studios
Planning Democracy
Plantlife Scotland
Project Seagrass
Ramblers Scotland
Reforesting Scotland
Revive
Royal Scottish Geographic Society
Royal Zoological Society of Scotland
RSPB Scotland
SCAPE Trust
Scotland the Big Picture
Scotland’s International Development Alliance
Scottish Ahlul Bayt Society
Scottish Allotments and Gardens Society
Scottish Badgers
Scottish Campaign for National Parks
Scottish Communities Climate Action Network
Scottish Communities for Health and Wellbeing
Scottish Community Alliance
Scottish Community Development Centre
Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations
Scottish Countryside Rangers’ Association
Scottish Environment LINK
Scottish Farming and Wildlife Advisers’ Group
Scottish Geodiversity Forum
Scottish Ornithologists’ Club
Scottish Raptor Study Group
Scottish Seabird Centre
Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
Scottish Wild Beaver group
Scottish Wild Land Group
Scottish Wildlife Trust
Sealife Adventures
Soil Association Scotland
Southern Upland Partnership
Stop Climate Chaos Scotland
Sustaining Dunbar
Sustaining North Berwick
The Conservation Volunteers
Transform Scotland
Transition Black Isle
Transition Edinburgh
Trees for Life
Ullapool Sea Savers
UN House Scotland
United Nations Association Scotland
Whale and Dolphin Conservation
Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust
Woodland Trust Scotland
WWF Scotland
© John MacPherson
By Paul Walton, RSPB Scotland
It’s an unavoidable truth that in nature conservation, success can sometimes produce intangible results. Much of what we try to achieve inevitably comprises stopping bad things happening to the environment. A successful bridge-builder has a bridge to look at where there was none; a fund manager, funds to help spend; a medic has well people, who were previously sick. The successful environmental campaigner might find that the output of years of effort is, for example, dunes and maritime grasslands that remain just as they were before. Nothing looks different – all that’s new is the invisible knowledge that these delicate and precious habitats have not been obliterated by the golf course or power station that someone tried to build over them.
Of course, conservation must also work to actively enhance the natural environment and make positive transformations. But this preventative work is and will remain a critical basis for our shared response to the unfolding global ecological crisis – and nowhere is that more important than in the challenge of invasive non-native species.
The recent report of IPBES (the Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services) confirmed both that nature and the essential services it provides for humanity are deteriorating fast across the planet. This deterioration is caused by 5 major direct drivers: land and sea-use changes; direct exploitation; climate change; pollution; and the introduction of invasive non-native species – INNS.
People moving any animal, plant or other organism from its native range and, deliberately or accidentally, introducing it into the wild, is a potential threat to wildlife. Geographic barriers such as oceans, mountains, deserts and currents have through geological time restricted the mixing of wildlife in different regions. Species develop independently in different parts of the world, and this generates much of global biodiversity. Non-native species introductions, in effect, break down these barriers. The rate of establishment of new species is increasing at world and UK scales. INNS effects are compounded by climate change and are predicted to worsen in future. The globalisation of trade – the most important vector of INNS – is increasing species movements and rates of release.
In Scotland, we already have non-native Rhododendron and conifers damaging our most important woodland and peatland habitats; non-native predators predating seabirds and waders on our islands; invasive marine organisms threatening internationally important marine ecosystems in our sea lochs.
The graph above shows a simplified, but all-too familiar, pattern of establishment of an invasive species. It’s clear that ecological damage increases with spread – but also, critically, the costs involved in terms of both impacts and the necessary responsive action escalate dramatically. Of course, we must work to strategically manage damaging INNS that are already established. But it is hundreds, sometimes thousands of times cheaper to prevent INNS establishing in the first place than it is to manage the issue after the event. Therefore, the Convention on Biological Diversity calls for a hugely elevated emphasis on prevention – often called biosecurity – when it comes to INNS impacts on nature and economies. It is also why the EU Environmental Principle of Preventative Action is a key guiding principle for effective, informed action to protect nature, and one that we must, as a matter of national priority, be enshrined explicitly in Scottish legislation at the earliest opportunity.
Do we really need to prevent every single egg, of every tiny non-native shrimp, from ever arriving here? Thankfully, no. Research is clear that the best predictor of INNS establishment in the wild is simply the rate at which non-native organisms are released. By taking sensible, proportionate, but effective preventative action we can reduce that rate, and thus reduce establishment probability. This became clear in New Zealand through the 20th century. Firm but proportionate biosecurity measures were introduced – and the results have been spectacular:
Non-native mammals establishing in New Zealand and in Europe over recent centuries. From Armon R.H., Zenetos A. (2015) Invasive Alien Species and Their Indicators. Armon R., Hänninen O. (eds) Environmental Indicators. Springer, Dordrecht
Across the UK countries, funding for INNS biosecurity runs at around £1 million per year. That is just a tiny fraction – less than 1/200th – of biosecurity investment protecting agriculture, horticulture and aquaculture. In Scotland we have important expertise and projects developing for biosecurity issues: on islands, for example, the RSPB is leading a biosecurity project for all our most important seabird colonies. We can be leaders in this field – but for that, we must protect our environment and our economic future by investing properly in biosecurity now – and we must legislate to bring the Principle of Preventative Action squarely and unambiguously into Scots law.
The Fight For Scotland’s Nature campaign is calling for a Scottish Environment Act which embeds the four key EU environmental principles in Scots law.
This blog is by the Have You Got the Bottle? campaign, and was first published on the Have You Got the Bottle? website.
Here at Have You Got The Bottle? we’re fighting for Scotland’s nature. We know about the negative impacts that litter has on wildlife; from insects and small mammals getting stuck inside bottles, to seabirds and creatures feeding plastic to their young. Evidence suggests that more than 140,000 bottles and cans are littered in Scotland every single day. That’s why we’re delighted that the Scottish Government have committed to introducing a deposit return system for most PET plastic bottles, steel and aluminium cans, and glass bottles before the end of this parliamentary session.
However, there’s increasing scientific evidence of the critical state of Scotland’s wildlife and habitats, and a deposit return system will only address a small part of the problem. That’s why we’re supporting Scottish Environment LINK’s Fight for Scotland’s Nature campaign. We want to see a Scottish Environment Act that protects Scotland’s wild places for the benefit of people and nature; one that gives clear ambitions for an environmental policy and a positive direction towards a more sustainable future for people and nature in Scotland.
Scottish Environment LINK has noted that while recent consultations on Environmental Principles and Governance have been a step in the right direction, there is much still to be done.
At Have You Got The Bottle? we’re particularly interested in ensuring that Scotland commits to the European Union’s environmental principles. The “polluter pays” principle is especially close to our hearts as it expresses the commonly accepted notion that those who produce pollution or environmental degradation should bear the costs of redressing it. This is exactly what happens in a well-run deposit return system, which is funded in part by a small producer fee for items placed in the system, and also through unredeemed deposits if the consumer chooses not to reclaim their money, thereby increasing the chance of their empties ending up as litter. This is a sound principle that can be applied in many other areas, and has already helped drive up the quality of our drinking water and beaches. Find out how you can support this important campaign at: https://www.
Bass Rock © Susan Davies
This blog is by Susan Davies, CEO of the Scottish Seabird Centre, and is adapted from Marine wildlife and habitats at risk.
The Scottish Seabird Centre is supporting 37 of Scotland’s leading environmental NGOs in calling for the principles of environmental governance to be spelt out in Scots law.
Without a doubt Scotland’s land, seas and iconic wildlife have benefited from the EU ‘Nature Directives’ – the Birds and Habitats Directive and other environmental pillars such as the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive. The EU Bathing Water Directive has also encouraged countries to innovate and tackle pollution around our coastline. The protection, monitoring and management standards we have benefited from are, however, at risk of being rolled back years when we leave the EU. That’s why the Scottish Seabird Centre is supporting 37 environmental charities, all members of Scottish Environment Link, to call for the underlying principles of environmental protection to be explicitly set out in Scots law.
Scotland has over 18,000 kilometres of coastline, almost 6 times the area of sea to land (764,678 square kilometres to the 200 nautical mile limit), 61 percent of the UK’s seas and 13 percent of the EU seas. This supports important marine habitats such as cold-water coral, kelp forests and flame shell beds, and iconic species including dolphins, porpoises, seals and basking sharks. Our seas also support a third of Europe’s breeding seabirds and we are proud of the international importance of these breeding colonies.
Much progress to protect our seas and iconic marine wildlife has been made under EU legislation, but the recent IPBES Global Assessment on the state of biodiversity brings into sharp focus the threats that still need to be tackled – climate change, invasive non-native species, changes in the use of the seas, exploitation of our seas and pollution. The global assessment states that 66 percent of our global marine environment has been affected by human action. A stark reminder of this is the visible presence of plastics in our marine environment, which have increased tenfold over the last 20 years, and are impacting on 267 species, including 44 percent of seabirds.
Whilst we welcome the Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform’s – Roseanna Cunningham MSP – stated ambition to ensure the important underlying principles of environmental protection (precaution, prevention, polluter pays and rectifying pollution at source) will continue after we leave the EU; there are no certainties this will be the case. Certainty will only be achieved by embedding these principles firmly in Scots law. Appropriate and effective mechanisms also need to be in place to monitor the health of our seas, to scrutinise performance against commitments and to hold the government of the day to account.
Collective cross-parliament support and action, rather than just words, are now required to demonstrate that the ambition is real. That’s why the Scottish Seabird Centre supports the Fight for Scotland’s Nature core recommendation that the environmental principles should be embedded in Scots law.
This blog was first published on the John Muir Trust website
The John Muir Trust has joined 35 of Scotland’s leading environmental NGOs in calling for a Scottish Environment Act to protect Scotland’s wild places for the benefit of people and nature.
The campaign has been launched by members of Scottish Environment LINK, voluntary organisations that share a common goal of contributing to a more environmentally sustainable society across varied conservation interests from bat conservation to Scotland’s outdoor ranger services.
The campaign has set out the need for a Scottish Environment Act – set against increasing scientific evidence of the critical state of wildlife and habitats – that gives clear ambitions for an environmental policy and a positive direction towards a more sustainable future for people and nature in Scotland.
Scottish Environment LINK has noted that while recent consultations on Environmental Principles and Governance have been a step in the right direction, there is much still to be done and a sense of urgency lacking given that the situation is compounded by Brexit and the risk of EU environmental protections, that have played a positive role , now unravelling.
The Trust is particularly interested in protections for all wild places; from Caledonian pine forests and coastal habitats to peatlands and our stunning mountain landscapes, from damaging land management practices including hill tracks, over-grazing and inappropriate built developments. It would also like to see a growing recognition and focus on supporting natural solutions to climate change.
“Our opportunities for experiencing wildness continue to be diminished through landscape degradation and species decline”, says Hebe Carus, Policy Officer at the John Muir Trust. “It’s vital we don’t reduce our existing commitments as a society to uphold our human right to a healthy environment. We must have laws in place to protect, conserve and repair our wildest places for the benefit of everyone”.
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