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Restoring nature and biodiversity

The issue:
There is a nature emergency
Our ambition:
Scotland is nature positive
Opportunity:
Help us restore nature and increase biodiversity
Goal 4
Goal 11
Goal 14
Goal 15
Goal 17

Creating a nature positive Scotland

We recognise the richness and uniqueness of Scotland’s biodiversity and nature and the importance it plays with regards to facilitating and sustaining all life.

We are clear that we must all play our part to halve biodiversity loss by 2030 and reverse it by 2045.  We are committed to ensuring that the biodiversity crisis is front and centre of what we all talk about, learn about and act on – from our education and training activities to our awards and accreditations, to the support we can offer communities.

We support Scotland’s strategy to tackle the nature emergency.

Our combined impact

We inspire communities, schools, organisations, businesses and individuals to restore nature and biodiversity through our training and wide range of practical activities and programmes.

Last year’s impact included:

  • 15,817 votes cast for the public’s favourite Pocket Garden.
  • 55 schools piloted Learning about Forests (LEAF) in 21 local authority areas. 
  • 37% of Green Flag Eco-School winners worked on the biodiversity topic.
  • 212 community groups and entrants participated in It’s Your Neighbourhood and Beautiful Scotland creating habitats for nature.

Our work with you to restore nature and biodiversity

We’re working every day to help Scotland become nature positive. Through our training, education programmes, community activities and award schemes we inspire action for nature.

Our longstanding community programmes It’s Your Neighbourhood and Beautiful Scotland support and celebrate efforts to plant for biodiversity, and we have supported the Garden for Life Forum since 2015, bringing together third sector organisations with a common goal to protect and enhance nature.

Biodiversity action is embedded through our Climate Action Schools Framework, with one of the key Eco-Schools topics having this theme. We also launched a new learning programme Learning about Forests (LEAF) in 2022 which advocates outdoor learning.

And, for the past seven years we have run a garden design and build competition for children and young people called Pocket Garden with thousands voting online annually for the public’s favourite design.

Our training offer includes accredited Climate Emergency Training for Nature and Biodiversity, as part of our efforts to support people become Carbon Literate and Nature Literate.

We also recognise local authorities, communities and land managers for their excellent work to protect biodiversity through our Green Flag Award for parks and Scotland's Beach Awards.

If you want to join us to restore nature and biodiversity get in touch.

Working with you to inspire action

We provide training, support for local community groups and educational activities for our young people to restore nature and biodiversity.

Find out more about our ongoing activities to restore Scotland's biodiversity and get involved. You can help by working with our Beautiful Scotland and It's Your Neighbourhood groups, signing your school up for our LEAF programme or participating in our fantastic training.

Read our recent reports

You can access our most recent nature and biodiversity reports via the links below, but we also publish a wide range of reports summarising activities and campaigns over the years. These can be found on our reports and publications pages. Please get in touch if you would like to find out more.

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