Supporting Scotland's Transition - Land Use and Agriculture: Technical Supporting Document

Key terms

The following key terms have been taken from a variety of different sources, (and attributed where appropriate). They are provided simply to add some clarity to the consultation documents and are not necessarily formal definitions as adopted by the Scottish Government.

• Adaptation – a process of on-going adjustments in response to observed and projected climate change impacts. This includes being prepared for increasing risks posed by climate change hazards, and identifying new opportunities our changing climate may bring. (Adaptation Scotland)
• Agri-tourism - a tourism or leisure activity on a working farm, croft or estate which produces food.
• Aquaculture - the breeding, growing, and harvesting of plants and animals in water. It can take place in natural water bodies such as ponds, lakes, and the ocean. Tanks, commonly found in fish hatcheries, are also used. Aquaculture production in Scotland includes salmon, trout, mussels, and other shellfish.
• Biodiversity - the variety of life on earth in all its forms, essential for sustaining the ecosystems that provide us with food, fuel, health, wealth, and other vital services.
• Carbon audit - a carbon audit is often referred to as a resource efficiency calculator. By measuring inputs such as fertiliser, animal feed or fuel for machinery, businesses can identify ways to lower emissions whilst improving efficiency and profitability. (Adapted from SRUC)
• Carbon credits - a permit which allows a country or organisation to produce a certain amount of carbon emissions, and which can be traded if the full allowance is not used.
• Carbon footprint - a measurement of the total greenhouse gases (GHGs) produced directly or indirectly by an organisation, person, product or service. (Scottish Enterprise)
• Carbon offsetting - the action or process of compensating for carbon dioxide emissions arising from industrial or human activity, by participating in schemes designed to make equivalent reductions of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
• Carbon sink – a natural or artificial reservoir that collects and stores carbon for an indefinite period, such as forests, oceans, or soil.
• Circular economy - a circular economy is one that is designed to reduce the demand for raw material in products and encourage reuse, repair and manufacture by designing products and materials to last as long as possible, in line with the waste hierarchy.
• Climate adaptation – changes in processes, practices and structures to moderate potential damages or to benefit from opportunities associated with climate change. (UNFCC)
• Climate change - a long-term change in the earth’s climate. This can be accelerated by human activity, e.g. by releasing CO2 into the atmosphere.
• Climate resilience – the ability to anticipate, prepare for, and respond to hazardous events, trends, or disturbances related to climate.
• Co-design - co-design relies on an inclusive and participative engagement process that empowers specific groups and people in society, to directly influence policy decisions and actions. The aim is to ensure that plans reflect their needs and circumstances, and the barriers they face.
• Co-development – the process of developing something new together with one or more other people or organisations
• Community body - a community organisation whose constitution or articles of association are compliant with the requirements of the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003.
• Community ownership - when a community buys land, buildings or other assets in the place where they live. It’s a process that can revitalise a community, ensure that any profits stay in the local area and allows the community to decide what they want to see happen locally. (Adapted from Community Land Scotland)
• Community Wealth Building - a people-centred approach to local economic development, which redirects wealth back into the local economy and places control and benefits into the hands of local people.
• Croft - a small unit of land traditionally situated in the former crofting counties which are located in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.
• Crofter - normally the tenant of a croft, paying rent to the landlord of the croft. Rent is paid for the land only as any house, agricultural building, fence etc is provided by, and owned by the crofter. A crofter may also own the croft, as owner-occupier crofter, and although owned the land remains in crofting tenure.
• Diversity – diversity is recognising, respecting and celebrating each other's differences. A diverse environment is one with a wide range of backgrounds and mindsets. (The Land Use for Net Zero Hub)
• Ecosystem services – the benefits humans obtain from ecosystems, including provisioning services like food and water, regulating services like climate control, supporting services like nutrient cycling, and cultural services like recreation. (The Land Use for Net Zero Hub)
• Empowered - make (someone) stronger and more confident, especially in controlling their life and claiming their rights. (Oxford Languages)
• Equality - means treating people fairly and giving people the same choices and chances.
• Equity – recognises that each person has different circumstances and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome. (The Land Use for Net Zero Hub)
• Framework – a system of rules, ideas, or beliefs that is used to plan or decide something. (Cambridge Business English Dictionary)
• Fuel poverty – once a household has paid for its housing, it is in fuel poverty if a) it needs more than 10% of its remaining income to pay for its energy needs, and b) if after paying for its energy the household is left in poverty (as defined by the Minimum Income Standard). (Fuel Poverty Scotland)
• Governance - the way that organisations or countries are managed at the highest level, and the systems for doing this. (Cambridge English Dictionary)
• Green economy – an economy that results in improved human well-being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities. In its simplest expression, a Green Economy can be considered as one that is low in carbon, resource efficient and socially inclusive. (UNEP)
• Green jobs – in the wider sense, ‘green jobs’ are those that, as a consequence of Scotland’s move to achieve net zero, are new or emerging, subject to significant changes in work and worker requirements or increasing in demand. (Adapted from Skills Development Scotland)
• Greenhouse gases – gases which absorb infrared radiation emitted from the surface of the Earth, helping to retain a portion of that energy in the atmosphere as heat, (carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide).
• Gross value added - Gross Value Added (GVA) measures the contribution to the economy of each individual producer, industry or sector. Simplistically, it is the value of the amount of goods and services that have been produced, less the cost of all inputs and raw materials that are directly attributable to that production.
• Integrated - when many different parts are closely connected and work successfully together. (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary)
• Just Transition Commission – an independent commission, supported by a Scottish Government secretariat, that provides independent scrutiny and advice on how to put justice at the heart of climate action in Scotland.
• Land based skills - the term ‘land based’ traditionally relates to farming and industries connected to the land and environment, including horticulture, food production, forestry, conservation, landscaping, fisheries management, animal care, game and wildlife management and equine (horses). (Adapted from LANTRA and NLBC)
• Land use - term used to describe the human use of land. It represents the economic and cultural activities (e.g., agricultural, residential, industrial, mining, and recreational uses) that are practised at a given place. (The Land Use for Net Zero Hub)
• Landholding - an area of land that is owned or held by a person or organisation.
• Mitigate – to make (something bad) less severe, serious, or painful.
• Monitoring and evaluation – monitoring is the ongoing process of regularly collecting and analysing relevant information to make sure you are doing what you set out to do. Evaluation is when you assess whether what you have been doing is really making the difference that you intended it to. (SCVO)
• Natural capital - the renewable and non-renewable stocks of natural assets, including geology, soil, air, water and plants and animals that combine to yield a flow of benefits to people.
• Nature-based solutions – actions to protect, sustainably manage and restore natural and modified ecosystems in ways that address societal challenges effectively and adaptively, to provide both human well-being and biodiversity benefits. (IUCN, 2016)
• Nature network - connects nature-rich sites, restoration areas, and other environmental projects through a series of areas of suitable habitat, habitat corridors and stepping-stones. As well as supporting regional and national approaches to protect and restore nature, they provide local benefits to wildlife and people. (NatureScot/NàdarAlba)
• Nature positive - means reversing the downward curve of biodiversity loss so that levels of biodiversity are once again increasing.
• Nature restoration - assisting in the recovery of ecosystems that have been degraded or destroyed, as well as conserving the ecosystems that are still intact. (International Standard for Ecological Restoration)
• Net zero - the balance between the amount of greenhouse gas produced and the amount removed from the atmosphere. We reach net zero when the amount we add is no more than the amount taken away. This can also be referred to as carbon neutral.
• Participatory – a participatory approach means that the person in charge of solving a problem or designing an innovation involves people who are directly concerned by the result of their work. (The Land Use for Net Zero Hub)
• Peatland – wetland areas with a thick, water-logged organic soil layer (peat) composed mainly of dead and decaying plant material, which store large amounts of carbon. (The Land Use for Net Zero Hub)
• Peatlands (healthy) - have lower greenhouse gas emissions and absorb carbon at a higher rate than peatlands in poor condition. They provide many additional benefits including wildlife habitat, absorbing pollutants, reducing the carbon content in water and regulating run-off and base flows in upland streams. Conversely, degraded peatland can emit CO2 and other greenhouse gases and contribute to climate change. (Adapted from NatureScot and Natural Resources Wales)
• Peer-to-peer learning - a mutual learning and training strategy that involves participants of the same level engaging in collaborative learning. At its simplest, it is when one or more learners teach other learners.
• Planetary boundaries - the nine Planetary Boundaries were first proposed by Johan Rockström and a group of 28 internationally renowned scientists in 2009. The Planetary Boundaries are the safe limits for human pressure on nine critical processes which together maintain a stable and resilient Earth. These are: biosphere integrity; climate change; land-system change; freshwater change; nutrient cycles; ocean acidification; aerosol pollution; ozone; and 'novel entities' (which includes pollutants like plastic). (Stockholm Resilience Centre)
• Regenerative agriculture – regenerative agriculture is a collection of farming practices. These focus on renewing and conserving soils, landscapes and ecosystems. Supporting nature and social justice in rural communities alongside agricultural outputs. It draws upon decades of scientific and applied research on agriculture and ecology. Key practices include minimising soil disturbance, and maximising crop diversity. Another approach is to integrate livestock and arable farming more closely. The goals of regenerative agriculture include:
• improving animal welfare
• increasing climate-resilience of production
• capturing carbon in soils and vegetation
• enhancing water quality and supply in the landscape
• supporting thriving biodiversity and ecosystem health
• Renewable Energy - energy from a source that is not depleted when used, such as wind or solar power.
• Reskilling/upskilling - the process of learning new skills so you can do a different job, or of training people to do a different job. (Cambridge Business English Dictionary)
• Revenue funding vs capital funding - revenue funding is money spent by business entities to maintain their everyday operations and can be used, for example, to put on events, performances and activities, pay for the running costs of an organisation or pay for trips and excursions. Capital funding is money spent by an organisation to acquire assets or to improve the quality of existing ones and is usually incurred for the long term.
• Stakeholders - those with an interest in an issue, e.g. investors, policy makers, businesses, employees, local communities, individuals, customers, and suppliers. (The Land Use for Net Zero Hub)
• Sustainable – a ‘sustainable’ plan, method, or system is designed to continue at the same rate or level of activity without any problems. When talking about environmental issues, ‘sustainable’ describes the use of natural resources when this use is kept at a steady level that is not likely to damage the environment. (Collins English Dictionary)
• Wellbeing - put simply, it is the state of feeling healthy and happy. (Cambridge English Dictionary). The World Health Organisation suggests wellbeing is a positive state experienced by individuals and societies. Similar to health, it is a resource for daily life and is determined by social, economic and environmental conditions. Well-being encompasses quality of life, as well as the ability of people and societies to contribute to the world in accordance with a sense of meaning and purpose.