Ecosystem Restoration Code (ERC): A Competent Model for private investment in nature restoration in Scotland

2. Terms and definitions

Biodiversity: short for biological diversity, the diversity of life in all its forms – the diversity of species, of genetic variations within one species, and of ecosystems.

Biodiversity gain: increase in biodiversity, for example in terms of species abundance, habitat or ecosystem condition, compared to the biodiversity baseline scenario.

Biodiversity metric: system or standard of measure for quantifying ecosystem condition or biodiversity.

Conservation: the management of human use of nature so that it may yield the greatest sustainable benefit to current generations while maintaining its potential to meet the needs and aspirations of future generations.

Ecosystem: communities of organisms interacting with each other and with their non-living environment –forests, wetlands, mountains, lakes, rivers, deserts and agricultural landscapes.

Ecosystem approach: a strategy for the integrated management of land, water and living resources that promotes conservation and sustainable use in an equitable way.

Ecosystem diversity: the variety of ecosystems that occurs within a larger landscape, ranging from biome (the largest ecological unit) to microhabitat.

Ecosystem services: processes by which the environment produces benefits useful to people, akin to economic services.

ERC credits: a certificate that represents a measured and evidence-based unit of positive ecosystem condition or biodiversity outcome that is durable and additional to what would have otherwise occurred.

ERC Management Plan: document setting out the short and long-term goals for the ERC project and the management activities, operational techniques and resources that will be required to deliver these.

ERC project establishment phase: the initial 0-5 years of an ERC project where most resource intensive capital interventions will be undertaken and land management changes introduced and established.

ERC Project Standards: standalone project quality standard providing guidance for land managers and project developers on the design and delivery of high-quality ERC nature restoration / biodiversity projects.

Habitat: the place or type of site where an organism or population of organisms naturally occurs.

Landholding: an area of land that a person or another entity (e.g. a business) owns or leases. A landholding may include non-adjacent land parcels.

Leakage: any loss of ecosystem condition or biodiversity outside the ERC project’s supply area as a result of the project (e.g. displacement of agricultural activities leading to the intensification of land use and loss of biodiversity elsewhere).

Nature Network: a joined-up system of places important for wild plants and animals, on land and in water. It allows plants, animals, seeds, nutrients and water to move from place to place and enables the natural world to adapt to change, providing plants and animals with places to live, feed and breed.

Nature30: Scotland's approach to delivering Other Effective area-based Conservation Measures (OECMs), the internationally recognised way, alongside Protected Areas, of achieving Target 3 of the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF).

Other relevant high-integrity nature market code: Scottish Government supported high-integrity nature market codes are the Woodland Carbon Code (WCC) and Peatland Code (PC). In time, other nature market codes may be added to this list (e.g. codes that are assured against a relevant standard from the BSI Nature Investment Standards Programme).

Project Design Document (PDD): a document created by the project developer for validation to describe how the project meets the requirements of the ERC at the outset.

Project duration: the time over which project activities are to be monitored, verified and biodiversity gain claims are to be made. ERC projects shall have a minimum project duration of 25 years.

Project end date: the last day a project accounts for biodiversity gain. The project end date is the project start date plus the project duration.

Project implementation date: the date when ERC project related work begins onsite. This could be capital interventions (e.g. adding / removing fencing, habitat creation), changes in land management (e.g. adoption of an enhanced herbivore / deer management plan) or both.

Project registration date: the date when a project moves from draft to under development status in the ERC approved registry.

Project start date: the date when all ERC project related capital works are complete, agreed priority land management changes have been implemented and the project starts to account for biodiversity gain.

Quantification methods: the rules, equations, conversion factors and parameters used to convert measured data into quantified outcomes relative to a clearly defined baseline and, where relevant, a post-project scenario. Quantification methods could be formalised in a biodiversity metric.

Regeneration: the process of assisting the recovery of ecosystem processes serving and / or enhancing biodiversity and ecosystem resilience. This may not necessarily be the original habitat type or include the original species communities. In woodland, regeneration is the spontaneous recovery of native tree species that colonise and establish in abandoned fields or natural disturbances; this process can also be assisted through human interventions such as fencing to control livestock grazing, weed control, and fire protection.

Restoration: the process of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem towards or to good condition, as a means of conserving and / or enhancing biodiversity and ecosystem resilience; for habitat types listed in Annexes I and II, restoration means the process of assisting their recovery to the highest level of condition attainable.

Species: groups of actually or potentially interbreeding natural populations, which are reproductively isolated from other groups.

Supply area: defined, physical location where a land manager implements management actions to generate verified ERC credits. May encompass an entire landholding or a smaller geography within a landholding.

Validation: the initial evaluation of an ERC project against the standards of the ERC, undertaken by an ERC approved Validation and Verification Body (VVB).

Validation and Verification Body (VVB): independent third-party organisations that have been approved to validate and verify ERC projects.

Verification: the ongoing evaluation of an ERC project against the standards of the ERC, undertaken by an ERC approved Validation and Verification Body (VVB). Verification assesses the biodiversity gain that has actually occurred as well as continuing ecological land management in line with the ERC Management Plan and ERC Project Standards.

Wild species: organisms captive or living in the wild that have not been subject to breeding to alter them from their native state.