September 8th, 2016 by ie-adminEnvironment groups urge immediate action
Scottish environment groups have expressed concern that an important consultation on the protection of special places for seabirds has been held back by the UK Government. Earlier this year in July the Scottish Government launched a consultation on 10 marine Special Protection Areas, a requirement under EU law to help safeguard areas crucial for internationally important bird populations.
However, a further five proposed marine SPAs were not included in the consultation as the required agreement of the UK Government had not been provided.
Now Scottish Environment LINK’s Marine Group has written to the UK Environment Minister, Thérèse Coffey MP, urging her to agree to the Scottish Government consulting on the sites without further delay
Urgently-needed measures to protect and recover populations of whales, dolphins and basking sharks must not fall victim to administrative delays, warn environmental groups. Two years ago (24th July 2012), the Scottish Government received formal advice recommending four Marine Protected Areas to safeguard some of the largest mammals and fish in our seas, including the world’s first MPAs for basking sharks and Risso’s dolphins. Despite governmental commitment, progress has stalled and the plans remain on hold.
Charlie Phillips/WDC
Scotland’s planning system must be directed to improve the health of our marine environment, according to a new report published today by Scottish Environment LINK’s Marine Group. ‘Living with the seas’ outlines a far-sighted vision for delivering sustainable development of Scotland’s sea area and securing environmental recovery from decades of decline. The report makes a series of recommendations that include the need for marine planning to:
- Plan for recovery: our seas are at risk of poorly-coordinated development. Plans must seek opportunities to recover our damaged marine environment. If the planning system is directed to enhancing the health of our marine environment using the ‘ecosystem approach’, our seas will become more productive.
- Help empower communities: the process of developing and delivering regional marine plans must be transparent and accessible to coastal communities and all stakeholders to ensure local knowledge contributes to the decision-making process.
- Receive adequate funding at regional level: regional marine planning partnerships must be adequately resourced to deliver effective regional marine plans
24 June 2016 – On 23 June, 52% of the UK’s population voted in favour of the UK withdrawing from the European Union (EU) while 62% of Scottish voters supported remaining in the EU. Given that environmental legislation falls primarily within the competence of the EU, with 28 different Member States working together on common policies, the referendum result will have critical implications for Scotland’s environment.
Reacting to the referendum results, Scottish Environment LINK’s President Joyce McMillan said:
“This is a hugely significant vote. The UK’s journey towards a withdrawal from the EU will be a lengthy process, and it is critical that Scotland’s government and elected Members of the Scottish Parliament work together to ensure that the standards of environmental protection enshrined in European law are upheld and enhanced.”
“The UK electorate’s decision to vote in favour of leaving the EU does not change the fact that Scotland and the UK are facing tremendous challenges in terms of environmental degradation. Through the UK’s EU membership, Scotland has benefited from a number of critical pieces of EU environmental legislation such as EU Nature Laws, air and water quality. Now, the direction of travel for Scotland needs to be one that builds on those achievements, rather than one that seeks to weaken or undo the progress which our EU membership has helped us to secure. This is equally true for UN agreements to which the UK and Scotland have committed themselves via the EU, such as the Paris Agreement on climate change”, added Joyce.
EU Directives and Regulations continue to apply to Scotland and the UK until a withdrawal agreement is negotiated between the EU and the UK. “It is important that we continue to respect the EU laws to which we remain bound. Any failure to do so could result in court action and will damage existing relationships with EU partners. Environmental challenges such as climate change and biodiversity loss know no boundaries. This is why redefining our relationship with the EU and its member countries will be particularly important in the coming months. We look to our leaders here and in the UK to open discussions with all relevant stakeholders now, to consider the relationships we will need with Europe as a whole, and to ensure delivery of adequate environmental protection. A healthy, sustainable environment is the key to our future economy, health and wellbeing”, underlined Joyce, “and no change in political or constitutional structures alters the need for well-designed and well-enforced legislation to protect and maintain our precious natural environment.”
Scottish Environment LINK will be closely monitoring the UK’s and Scotland’s next steps in the process of EU membership withdrawal to ensure that protection of our environment is upheld and enhanced, at Scottish, UK and international levels.
Download the full press release here.
For more information please contact:
Daphne Vlastari, LINK Advocacy Officer
Email daphne@scotlink.org
Tel 0131 225 4345
ENDS
Notes to Editors:
- Scottish Environment LINK is the forum for Scotland’s environment organisations facilitating and enabling informed debate, information-sharing, discussion and joint action. Our 36 member organisations have cumulatively over 500,000 individual members, and represent a range of environmental interests with the common goal of contributing to a more environmentally sustainable society.
- According to Article 50 of the Treaty of the EU, an EU Member State wishing to withdraw from the EU needs to notify the European Council of its intention to exit the Union. A withdrawal agreement is negotiated between Council, on behalf of the EU, and the relevant Member State. EU law ceases to be applicable to the withdrawing Member State from the date of the withdrawal agreement enters into force or, failing that, within two years of the notification unless the Member State and Council both agree to extend this period. The agreement must set out the arrangements for withdrawal, including a framework for the Member State’s future relationship with the EU. The agreement is approved by the Council acting by qualified majority and the European Parliament needs to provide its consent.
- It is important to note that any national acts adopted in implementation or transposition of EU law would remain valid until the national authorities decide to amend or repeal them. More information on the process and timescale for an EU membership withdrawal can be found here: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2016/577971/EPRS_BRI(2016)577971_EN.pdf
Scottish Environment LINK is the forum for Scotland’s voluntary environment community, with over 35 member bodies representing a broad spectrum of environmental interests with the common goal of contributing to a more environmentally sustainable society.
LINK is a Scottish Charity (SC000296) and a Scottish Company Limited by guarantee (SC250899). LINK is core funded by Membership Subscriptions and by grants from Scottish Natural Heritage, Scottish Government and Charitable Trusts.
Visit us at ukvps3.ie-dev.co.uk/scotlink-wordpress/ or follow us on @ScotLINK
LINKLocal, a project funded by Scottish Environment LINK, aims to link up Scotland’s campaigning and local action groups working on environment issues, read our press release below for full details, or to join, sign up here LINKLocal
6 April 2016 – The GDP figures released today show us that the Scottish economy grew by 0.2% in the last quarter of 2015 and by 1.9% over 2015 as a whole but tell us very little about whether Scotland is a better country to live in.
Scottish Environment LINK members believe that while too much attention is given to GDP figures, which only tell us how busy our economy is, not enough attention is given to the sort of economy we want or the resource base on which our economy relies. This seems particularly counter-intuitive given the Scottish government’s commitment to creating a more circular economy and a fairer society as a whole. Matthew Crighton, Convenor of LINK’s Economic Group, said “GDP is a poor proxy for success. It was designed to measure economic activity regardless of what the impact of that activity is, for example in terms of societal progress and wellbeing. Our preoccupation with GDP is akin to only watching the speedometer in our car and never looking at the fuel gauge. How can high GDP be a good thing if it is using up the natural resources our economy and wellbeing rely on?”
Our progress towards a fairer a more sustainable society should be measured against other indicators too, many of which are already included in the National Performance Framework. “A quick look at several important indicators, such as the recently added Natural Capital Index which measures the stock of natural assets that Scotland has such as biodiversity, soil health and freshwater quality, reveals that while GDP has steadily grown over the last four years, levels of natural capital have generally declined since 2006, although 2013 – 2014 saw a slight improvement. Other indicators, such as mental health are either static or declining. This is really important information enabling us to gauge the impact we are having on our environment and to track our progress towards a fairer and more sustainable society”, added Matthew.
Ahead of the Holyrood 2016 elections, LINK members call on Scottish political parties to put sustainable development at the core of their policy agendas by mainstreaming the use of NPF indicators to measure progress towards a fairer and more sustainable society.
Download the full press release here.
Notes to editors:
- Scottish Environment LINK is promoting a suite of indicators that can adequately reflect the wellbeing of society and the health of our environment as well as the state of our economy. Given the oft-quoted adage that ‘what we measure affects what we do’, it is argued that, through better indicators, public policy will be better guided. Link to Flourishing Scotland page and NPF paper http://www.scotlink.org/workareas/economics-forum/
Contact details
Matthew Crighton, Friends of the Earth Scotland and Convenor of LINK’s Economics Group: 0131 243 2700 or mcrighton@foe-scotland.org.uk
Daphne Vlastari, LINK Advocacy officer: 0131 225 4345 or daphne@scotlink.org
Scottish Environment LINK is the forum for Scotland’s voluntary environment community, with over 35 member bodies representing a broad spectrum of environmental interests with the common goal of contributing to a more environmentally sustainable society.
LINK is a Scottish Charity (SC000296) and a Scottish Company Limited by guarantee (SC250899). LINK is core funded by Membership Subscriptions and by grants from Scottish Natural Heritage, Scottish Government and Charitable Trusts.
Visit us at ukvps3.ie-dev.co.uk/scotlink-wordpress/ or follow us on @ScotLINK
Scottish Environment LINK welcomes the Scottish government’s update of the National Performance (NPF) indicators which takes us closer to realising the full potential of the NPF as a tool for measuring progress towards sustainable development.
“NPF is key to measuring government performance against quality of life and the state of our natural environment as well as economic indicators, and tracking progress towards sustainable development. Including indicators to measure the state of Scotland’s natural capital and ecosystems as well as accessibility to green spaces is therefore a step in the right direction”, said Deborah Long of Plantlife, member of LINK’s Economics Group. “However, to ensure that environment indicators such as the Natural Capital Index are a valuable addition to the NPF indicator suite, further investment is needed to measure the status of biodiversity at the base of ecosystems, such as flowering plants and pollinators. Our members are committed to supporting the Scottish government in this respect and will work with officials to roll out current and proposed monitoring schemes for plants and pollinators wherever possible”.
LINK members support the NPF and are confident that by incorporating social, economic and environmental metrics, it will be able to accurately measure Scotland’s transition towards a more sustainable and fair society. The addition of new indicators on underemployment and the living wage will give us a fuller picture of our economy and how it is contributing to wellbeing. Further progress could be made by incorporating indicators that tell us about the impact of our consumptive lifestyle in terms of the raw materials that we consume from around the world. This would also be in line with Scotland’s circular economy ambitions.
As indicated in LINK’s Holyrood 2016 manifesto, we hope that in the next parliament Scottish political parties will continue supporting an ambitious NPF that can tell us whether the policies and legislation we adopt are helping us make progress towards a sustainable Scotland.
Download the full press release here.
Contact details
Phoebe Cochrane, LINK Sustainable Economics Policy Officer at phoebe@scotlink.org or 0131 243 2723/ 07419 373320
Daphne Vlastari, LINK Advocacy Officer at daphne@scotlink.org or 0131 225 4345
Scottish Environment LINK is the forum for Scotland’s voluntary environment community, with over 35 member bodies representing a broad spectrum of environmental interests with the common goal of contributing to a more environmentally sustainable society.
LINK is a Scottish Charity (SC000296) and a Scottish Company Limited by guarantee (SC250899). LINK is core funded by Membership Subscriptions and by grants from Scottish Natural Heritage, Scottish Government and Charitable Trusts.
Visit us at ukvps3.ie-dev.co.uk/scotlink-wordpress/ or follow us on @ScotLINK
For more information visit about the NPF updates please visit: http://www.gov.scot/About/Performance/scotPerforms/NPFChanges#2016 refresh
The 76 MSPs who have participated in the Species Champions Initiative were thanked this evening for their work during the current parliament to support Scotland’s threatened wildlife. Scottish Environment LINK held a reception in Holyrood hosted by Rob Gibson MSP. Read more here.
