Time is running out – words must become actions.
Visitors and residents of Scotland alike hold a long-standing love for, and fascination with, our natural heritage. In recent years, the important role that nature plays in our daily lives has become clear: it improves physical health and mental wellbeing; it enhances air quality and provides natural solutions to big problems, such as natural flood defences to respond to extreme weather events caused by climate change. Put simply we need nature in our lives for the places we live and work in to survive and thrive.
Yet, Scotland’s natural environment is far from being in a healthy state, and the situation is increasingly exacerbated by the realities of climate change. The State of Nature report published in 2019 revealed 49% of Scottish species decreased in abundance between 1994 and 2016. Earlier this year, the Biodiversity Intactness Index (BII), which ranks countries and territories based on how much nature is left in a pristine state, revealed that Scotland is currently ranked 28th from the bottom, out of 240. We cannot afford for Scotland to have another lost decade for nature. RSPB Scotland welcomed the climate emergency declared in 2019 and that the Scottish Government have acknowledged that responding to the climate and nature crises requires urgent action “in every aspect of life and enterprise”. This rhetoric must be matched with transformative action to reverse declines in nature and respond to the climate emergency: the two are intertwined. The National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4), currently being drafted by government officials, will play a critical role in addressing the nature and climate emergency.
NPF4 will become one of Scotland’s most important national policy documents, set to guide how all development in Scotland will be designed and built for the next decade and beyond. It will set out what Scotland will be like in 2050 and the changes that will be required to get us there. Crucially, this will take us through the statutory 2030 interim climate targets and beyond the legal requirement for Scotland to be net-zero by 2045. The Scottish Government has been clear that radically accelerating efforts to meet our net-zero emissions targets will be developed through the NPF4: however, it is the potential of Scotland’s planning system to drive action on both the climate and nature emergencies that is most pressing. The real, transformative change will be putting both climate and restoring nature at the heart of the planning system, rather than solely focusing on climate.
In light of this, we are calling for NPF4 to secure long-lasting benefits for nature, climate and people by actively supporting decision-makers to make both net-zero and nature-positive decisions, after centuries of Scotland’s nature being depleted, that will help developments leave nature in a better state than before. To support nature positive actions that will come from these decisions we are urging the Scottish Government to ensure a Climate and Nature Network is adopted as a National Development. The Network would help restore nature, improve local environments for people across Scotland and result in multiple health, economic and other social benefits. It would also enable greater collaboration between the sectors that build our homes, workplaces, transport and other urban infrastructure and rural land use sectors such farming and forestry, helping to deliver nature-based solutions at the scale and pace that is needed to tackle the nature and climate emergency across all parts of Scotland.
We’re expecting a draft NPF4 to be laid before parliament this autumn/winter and put out for public consultation before being adopted in spring 2022. Will it deliver? Will nature and climate be put front and centre of Scotland’s planning system? Will it provide hope for a net-zero, nature positive future? It must and RSPB Scotland will be encouraging and working with Government to ensure this happens. The public consultation is an important opportunity to ensure your voice is heard to demand support for nature in our planning system. You can keep up to date with our work on NPF via our website and social media channels.