LINK Thinks

LINK Thinks is a space for members and others to express their views about Scotland’s environment. If you would like to contribute a blog please contact information@scotlink.org. The opinions expressed in this blog are the author's and not necessarily those of the wider LINK membership.

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Is Scotland being left behind in the transition to a circular economy?

09 Mar 2023

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 […]

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Targeted species recovery is essential to restoring ecosystems

16 Feb 2023

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.

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Humanity’s war on nature: was COP15 a battle cry or a white flag?

13 Feb 2023

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, […]

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Nature Pays the Price

10 Feb 2023

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 […]

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Reflections from a back garden on COP15

09 Feb 2023

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 […]

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A nature positive economy needs to be circular

11 Jan 2023

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 […]

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2023 must be the year where we turn a corner for nature

06 Jan 2023

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 […]

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What does the ocean need from COP15?

15 Dec 2022

The Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15) is all about nature and how we must all take progressive actions to reverse the global loss of biodiversity. COP15 has been somewhat overshadowed by the higher-profile Climate COP – COP27 – which recently took place in Egypt, but due to the climate […]

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The Importance of Freshwater Ecosystems

13 Dec 2022

The new Scottish Biodiversity Strategy offers a significant opportunity to restore Scotland’s ecosystems and reverse species declines. Our natural environment is in crisis, and we urgently need an ambitious new strategy with clear targets. Freshwater ecosystems are essential for biodiversity, providing habitat for a wide array of aquatic species while also helping to reduce the […]

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