Deborah Long, chief officer, Scottish Environment LINK
Nature is crucial for our survival. With six years left to meet the goals and targets of the Global Biodiversity Framework, urgent action is needed. UN Development Agency, UNDP. October 2024
The world’s governments are meeting in Colombia at the COP16 UN biodiversity summit this week to talk about biodiversity loss and how to stop it. Although the UK government is there, the Scottish government is not. As a nation world renowned for our landscapes and wildlife, this is a missed opportunity to contribute to and be inspired by the energy and momentum of these events. That momentum and commitment is not trivial: we will need to recreate that energy somehow back here in Scotland.
At the same time, Scotland is the current President of Regions4, the group of sub national and regional governments working together to halt the loss of biodiversity, halt climate change and meet the UN Sustainable Development goals. Regions4 is empowering regions to end biodiversity loss and bringing the regional voice and knowledge of regional and local initiatives into COP16. At home, Scotland is showing what is possible through its Nature Restoration Fund and its Peatland ACTION fund. So, Scotland’s absence from COP16 is baffling.
What is clear though is that Regions4 is a huge opportunity for Scotland and its partners to show the leadership humanity needs to see on biodiversity. In European terms Scotland’s biodiversity as measured though our biodiversity intactness index is in poor shape, languishing as we do near the bottom.
The scale of Scotland’s leadership will be revealed soon with the publication of the new Scottish Biodiversity Framework and its first delivery plan. This framework needs to be a step change in Scotland’s approach to biodiversity. Anything less will not be sufficient. A huge amount of work has gone into this, with Scottish Environment LINK members alone offering detailed comments in workshops and an 80 page consultation response . We don’t know what the strategy and plan will look like, but we know how they NEED to look for Scotland to meet the strategy’s objective of halting biodiversity loss by 2030 and reversing it through large scale restoration by 2045.
The key test for the framework and plans will be whether the actions outlined in them will together meet these objectives. This requires ambition, collaboration across society and working at scale. It is much more than a repackaging of actions that are already committed to: the State of Nature 2023 Scotland report shows nature continues to decline and we are not yet doing enough. Bending the curve on biodiversity by 2030 will take leadership and courage.
The Framework and plans need to:
Outline the ambition needed to reach nature positive by 2045: Nature targets set in legislation will help define the direction of travel and bring everyone on board. We don’t need to outline all the steps in this first delivery plan, but it needs to set a determination to progress.
Map out how we restore ecosystems on land and at sea: Ecological and systems thinking is needed to build ecological networks. This means thinking and acting at scale on the drivers of biodiversity loss. It includes tackling invasive non native species, deer management to achieve widespread natural woodland regeneration, and improved water and air quality. It also includes actions to meet the 30×30 commitments through maximising the benefits of national parks and protected areas and enabling communities, organisations and groups across Scotland to manage land and sea for nature, connecting up habitats and reconnecting with nature as they go.
Use public funding better: there is no place for perverse subsides in today’s environmental and economic conditions. Public funding must support the provision of public goods to society including carbon sequestration, thriving biodiversity and full access to healthy green and blue spaces.
Plan for biodiversity: local nature network plans are good but insufficient. Local Authorities alone cannot deliver ecologically coherent networks across Scotland. That requires planning at a national level, with guidance on what action is needed where to rebuild ecological connectivity. Ecosystems don’t stick to council boundaries.
Clear lines of responsibility for delivery and monitoring: without ownership and monitoring we won’t get where we need to be and we won’t know how we are doing.
Include Scotland’s people: Scotland’s nature requires us all to be involved. This means enabling people across Scotland to reconnect with nature, as a constituent part of every part of the plan. Integration and collaboration will be key to success.
Leadership and showing success: the proposed six landscape scale projects will help demonstrate leadership at scale and produce results at the geographical scale required over time. Ecological restoration is not quick but acting at scale, in collaboration with local communities and landowners and managers is the most effective approach to take to embed the conditions for change quickly and effectively.
Scotland’s nature needs action. COP16 should be the driver to inspire effective change. The new Framework and Delivery Plan must be the mechanism.