Keep Scotland Beautiful welcomes Nature Recovery Plan

We today welcome the publication of a new Nature Recovery Plan for Scotland, produced jointly by the Scottish Wildlife Trust, WWF Scotland and RSPB Scotland.

The report sets out 11 actions with the potential to restore Scotland’s nature, help us meet our climate change targets, improve people’s quality of life, and contribute to our progress towards achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (Global Goals). The report argues that several of these actions should be prioritised by the Scottish Government as part of a Green Recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.

We support several of the Plan’s asks. In particular, we strongly favour an expansion in Scotland’s native woodlands, both as a means of supporting habitats for a diverse range of wildlife and as an important part of achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045. Similarly, we also support an end to burning on Scotland’s peatlands, not only due to the unique variety of species which thrive there but also because of the hugely valuable role they play as a natural carbon store.

We are also keen to see a National Planning Framework 4 which ensures positive effects for biodiversity in practice, in turn supporting the collective wellbeing of both communities and wildlife across the country. Finally, we are delighted to see the report set out how its proposed actions would contribute to eight Global Goals. We believe that the Global Goals provide a hugely useful framework for us to consider as we work to achieve a truly Green Recovery in the months and years ahead.

The report can be read in full here.