Scottish biodiversity strategy: report to Parliament 2020 to 2024

3. Outcome 3: Biodiversity, health and quality of life

Improved health and quality of life for the people of Scotland, through investment in the care of green space, nature and landscapes.

3.1 Provide opportunities for everyone to experience and enjoy nature regularly, with a particular focus on disadvantaged groups.

Visits to the outdoors have increased during the last decade, with trips to local greenspace growing in importance especially during and immediately after the Covid-19 pandemic. Campaigns such as RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch and NatureScot’s Make Space for Nature have successfully promoted a range of everyday opportunities for people to grow their connection to nature. The latter has now reached over 1 million people across Scotland. More targeted effort is needed to ensure that participation and its benefits are enjoyed more equally across all of Scotland’s people.

The Make Your Mark in Volunteering portal has been developed to provide a one-stop-shop for people looking to volunteer for nature or heritage. Third sector bodies such as TCV Scotland and Volunteering Matters provide a range of opportunities for a diverse range of people and communities to volunteer locally, while the uptake of the John Muir Award continued to grow during the reporting period. Public bodies such as NatureScot and the two National Parks provide volunteering opportunities although often cannot meet the demand. The third sector will need continued support and longer-term funding arrangements to deliver further increases in volunteering.

To address inequalities in access to nature, targeted investment in green and blue spaces is important. With funding from the 2014-2020 European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), the Green Infrastructure Strategic Intervention supported projects in large towns or cities. Just over 200 ha of greenspace was created or improved across 12 capital projects in areas of multiple deprivation. About 32 ha of vacant and derelict land was converted to greenspace, helping to build nature networks within settlements. Evidence of the health benefits from this type of investment was provided by research from Glasgow Caledonian University in 2022.

With funding rounds offered between 2015 and 2018, and in 2021 and 2022, The Improving Public Access component of the Agri-Environment Climate Scheme (AECS) recognised that improving access to the countryside, nature and outdoor spaces helps to improve people’s health and physical and mental well-being, and brings social and economic benefits. The scheme evaluations 2015-2022 illustrates how it has supported and encouraged responsible barrier-free public access in rural Scotland by improving path conditions, integrating land-use and land management, and increasing links and connectivity. The scheme was open to local authorities, public bodies, public-private partnerships, NGOs, private companies, organisations in charge of tourist and recreational development, as well as individual farmers, groups of farmers and other land managers across rural areas of Scotland.

3.2 Support local authorities and communities to improve local environments and enhance biodiversity using greenspace and green networks, allowing nature to flourish and enhancing the quality of life for people who live there.

National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4) established a requirement for developments to contribute to the enhancement of biodiversity, including restoring degraded habitats and building and strengthening nature networks and the connections between them. The Developing with Nature guidance is helping local authorities and developers apply this policy to local developments. The Scottish Government has also published Biodiversity: draft planning guidance setting out Scottish Ministers’ expectations for implementing NPF4 policies which supports the cross-cutting NPF4 outcome of ‘improving biodiversity’. The guidance has been prepared with advice provided by CIEEM, the RTPI, Heads of Planning Scotland, the Improvement Service and NatureScot. The forthcoming Scottish Biodiversity Planning Metric (under commission) will help to support delivery of NPF4 Policy 3b (biodiversity enhancements in national, major and EIA applications).

The Planning (Scotland) Act 2019 introduced a new duty on local authorities to prepare and publish an Open Space Strategy (OSS). The purpose of an OSS is to set out a strategic framework of the planning authority's policies and proposals as to the development, maintenance and use of green infrastructure in their district, including open spaces and green networks. Regulations on OSS are due to come into force in this current parliament (2024), although most local authorities are preparing their OSS in advance of the new regulations coming into force.

The Framework for Nature Networks in Scotland aims to catalyse action needed across Scotland to implement Nature Networks to help in halting and reversing biodiversity loss. The Nature Networks Toolbox supports delivery by providing a live resource for local authorities, partnerships, organisations, and groups to facilitate the effective design and implementation of Nature Networks at the local and regional level and support strong alignment in approaches across Scotland. Updated Guidance on Establishing and Managing Local Nature Conservation Site Systems (LNCS) in Scotland sets out how the establishment and management of Local Nature Conservation Sites can contribute to nature networks, spatial planning, and help address the nature crisis and climate emergency.

The Place Standard with a Climate Lens guidance provides a means by which local people can explore how climate change might affect their community, with prompts to encourage discussion around the role of blue and green infrastructure in making the places where we live more resilient to extreme weather events.

3.3 Build on good practice being developed by the NHS and others to encourage greenspace, green exercise and social prescribing initiatives that will improve health and well-being through connecting people with nature.

With the publication of the NHS Climate Emergency and Sustainability Strategy 2022-26, good progress is being been made in mainstreaming nature-based solutions to deliver outcomes for nature, climate and health. This strategy includes commitments to a range of actions to increase the nature richness and public benefits of the NHS estate and the development of Green Health Partnerships and similar green health approaches.

It builds on the work led by NatureScot with Scottish Forestry, Public Health Scotland and NHS Assure on developing Scotland’s Natural Health Service, including the NHS Greenspace Demonstration Project and the successful piloting of four Greenhealth Partnerships in Dundee, Highland, Lanarkshire and North Ayrshire. The piloting of Green Health Partnerships has now been completed and nature-based solutions are increasingly mainstreamed in health and social care policy and practice.

3.4 Increase access to nature within and close to schools and support teachers in developing the role of outdoor learning across the Curriculum for Excellence.

The Curriculum for Excellence and Learning for Sustainability have sought to embed environmental awareness and understanding within mainstream education policy and practice. All Scottish pupils have the right to expect regular learning outdoors and to experience more of, and learn about, Scotland’s nature and landscapes. Teacher competencies should include the skills and confidence to take learning outdoors across all areas of the curriculum. However, despite good practice being developed by schools across Scotland, the most recent NatureScot survey of outdoor learning and play suggests that while provision continues to grow in early years settings, it has declined in primary and secondary years.

To address this, Scotland’s Learning for Sustainability Action Plan 2023 to 2030 includes a strengthened ‘Target 2030’ vision for all educational establishments to be ‘sustainable learning settings’ by 2030, and includes a renewed ambition for all learners to have regular opportunities to experience, learn about, and benefit from nature on their educational estate. The Nature Discovery Map Scotland - an interactive map-based learning toolkit for schools co-designed with teachers to allow pupils to discover and map biodiversity in their school grounds – is being rolled out from Autumn 2024 to support this ambition.

A range of resources to support outdoor learning are available through Scotland’s Outdoor Learning Directory, including Beyond your boundary: easy steps to learning in local greenspace. The Learning in Local greenspace demonstration project showed in practice how outdoor learning provision in 115 schools serving some of the most disadvantaged communities in Scotland could be increased, and further work is being taken forward with schools in Lanarkshire and Dundee to build on this. The Greenspace Map for Outdoor Learning developed as part of this project also help educators find their local greenspace, while over 20 Wee Forests have been established in or near schools to increase nature connection and provide learning opportunities as part of the global tiny forest network.

3.5 Encourage public organisations and businesses to review their responsibilities and actions for biodiversity

In 2020 Scottish Government and NatureScot revised the Guidance on the Biodiversity Duty to support public bodies in complying with their legal duties to report on how they have ‘furthered the conservation of biodiversity so far as it is consistent with the proper exercise of their functions’.

3.6 Monitoring this Outcome