Scottish biodiversity strategy: report to Parliament 2020 to 2024

8. The State of Nature in Scotland

Scotland makes a significant contribution to UK biodiversity. It has a high proportion of the UK’s upland habitats, including its most mountainous terrain, and has species found nowhere else in the UK. Some of Scotland’s species, such as the White-script Lichen and Scottish Primrose, are found nowhere else in the world. Historic deforestation, intensified livestock grazing since the 18th century, widespread sporting management since the 19th century and large-scale commercial forestry during the 20th century have all had significant effects on Scotland’s wildlife.

The State of Nature Scotland 2023 report provides compelling evidence of the continuing nature crisis. While some species have seen increases, in the last decade alone 43% have declined. Overall, there has been no reduction in the net loss of nature in Scotland.

Headline figures from the State of Nature report 2023 include:

• There has been an average 15% decline in abundance of 407 terrestrial and freshwater species since 1994.
• There has been a 49% decline in average abundance of Scottish seabirds.
• 11% of species found in Scotland are threatened with extinction from Great Britain.

We are at a critical juncture with mutually reinforcing twin crises of biodiversity loss and climate change impacting on nature, the economy, and society. Addressing these crises requires high level strategic leadership, responsible public and private investment and a ‘whole-of-society approach’ that engages communities, business and decision-makers.

8.1 Learning from success in halting biodiversity loss

There have been notable successes in our efforts to halt the loss of biodiversity, particularly where there has been focused action, as illustrated below.

The Shiant Isles Recovery Project

Home to over 60,000 pairs of puffins, around 8,000 razorbills and 9,000 guillemots, the Shiant Islands were declared rat free in 2018 marking successful completion of the Shiant Isles Recovery Project coordinated by the RSPB, with support from the European Union’s LIFE programme (LIFE+), NatureScot and the landowner. This has secured a safe nesting area for one of Europe’s most important seabird colonies. Previously unable to breed on the islands due to their vulnerability to rat predation, European storm petrels bred successfully in 2018.

Pollinators

The Pollinator Strategy for Scotland 2017-2027 was produced by Scottish Government and Scottish Natural Heritage in collaboration with representatives of landowners and land managers, bee keepers, government agencies, researchers and eNGOs to provide a framework for everyone from local government and public bodies to local groups and conservation organisation, farmers, horticultural businesses and land managers, private gardeners and members of the public to act to ensure that Scotland is a place where pollinators thrive.

The Strategy supports and advises landowners and land managers on managing land and greenspaces for pollinators, on surveying and monitoring pollinators, on mapping habitats, on creating local Pollinator Plans and projects, and it promotes knowledge exchange, including through an annual conference. Information on local actions is provided in regular Pollinator Strategy Progress Reports on the NatureScot website.

Scottish Government and European funding

The European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) is the funding stream for the Scottish Rural Development Programme which includes schemes such as AECS, the Forestry Grant Scheme, and the Crofting Agricultural Grant Scheme, all of which help support biodiversity outcomes to a greater or lesser extent.

The Green Infrastructure Strategic Intervention was part of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) 2014-2020 Programme and invested in projects to improve the quality and multifunction of greenspaces in areas of multiple deprivation in large urban areas. These projects show the value of nature-based solutions in connecting people with nature and extending nature networks into urban areas.

The Scottish Government’s £65M Nature Restoration Fund was announced at the UN Climate CoP26 in Glasgow. The fund is supporting more than 170 projects delivering exciting on-the-ground activity to protect and restore Scotland’s biodiversity. These include projects working at the landscape scale and across multiple years, such as the restoration of Scotland’s rainforest around Loch Arkaig (see also s1.1) and the use of natural flood management techniques to restore the River Peffery catchment near Dingwall (see also s5.6).

Key elements of success of funding and other interventions for nature include acting soon so that benefits build and become more resilient over time. The interventions also need to be designed, planned and managed on an ongoing basis to yield multiple benefits and manage multiple risks, building resilience to the risks of a more chaotic climate.

AECS schemes and tailored Management Agreements

The support from AECS and NatureScot Management Agreements and projects has helped us to better understand and tackle biodiversity loss for a range of species and habitats across Scotland. An example is that corn bunting numbers have increased, partly due to AECS funding.

Species reintroductions and conservation translocations

Conservation translocation has become an increasingly used tool, involving a range of other species such as round-leaved bryum, alpine blue sow-thistle (see below), twinflower, oblong woodsia, sea grass, native oyster, pond mud snail, Triops tadpole shrimp, pine hoverfly, dark bordered beauty moth, great crested newt and others. Scotland has also provided Eurasian beavers, pine martens and white-tailed eagles for translocation projects to England. These have all been guided by the Scottish Code for Conservation Translocations. Collaborative work with English partners is also being developed to look at the potential use of assisted colonisations to move species at risk from climate change, and the production of a UK-wide conservation translocation project repository.

Conservation translocation is one of the three main themes of Scotland’s Beaver Strategy 2022-2045. Opportunities for wider beaver restoration continue to be pursued, and during 2023 to 2024 translocations of beavers were made to both the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park and the Cairngorms National Park.

The South of Scotland Golden Eagle Project has overseen the release of nineteen eagles since 2018, as a result there are now more golden eagles in south Scotland than at any time recorded in the last two hundred years. The population now exceeds 30 birds. Effective community engagement has been the cornerstone of success, with more than 10,000 volunteers and special project participants of all ages. The first ever UK Golden Eagle Festival was held in Moffat in autumn 2021 and the project’s website includes regular blogs.

The Saving Wildcats project launched in late 2019, and during 2021-2023 built a conservation ‘breeding for release’ centre at which 22 wildcat kittens were reared in specially designed enclosures. Concurrently, release sites within the Cairngorms Connect area were identified and prepared for the releases. This work included engaging with land managers and householders in the area and catching, conducting camera surveys, and neutering and vaccinating feral and wild-living hybrid cats. News of the first wild-born kittens arising from this release was announced in June 2024. A new wildcat strategy for Scotland is being developed with key stakeholders.

A genetic study of all four remaining native populations of alpine blue-sowthistle in Scotland by Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE), found that very few individuals remain at each site and that the populations are inbred. To increase genetic variability, and improve the health of the Scottish population, plants originating from different Scottish populations were planted together at new sites. This allowed the plants to breed together, something that would be highly unlikely amongst wild populations. Between 2017 and 2021 over 1,200 alpine blue-sowthistle plants were introduced at 12 new sites, on five different estates.

Local Biodiversity Plans and Partnerships

Local Biodiversity Action Plan (LBAP) Partnerships were established across Scotland in response to the first UK Biodiversity Action Plan in 1994 and continue to play a critical role in bringing together local stakeholders including local authorities, environmental NGOs, communities and volunteers by operating at a local level to raise awareness and to plan and manage projects and actions to conserve and enhance biodiversity. This role is recognised in the Edinburgh Declaration on the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, agreed at CoP15 in 2022.