A spotlight on biodiversity

A spotlight on Scotland’s Biodiversity is the title of the two-day conference at the Royal Society of Edinburgh running yesterday and today – and that’s what we’ll be doing in our blog over the coming month; shining a spotlight on biodiversity in Scotland.

Scotland's environment web
October 11, 2017

Scotland is renowned worldwide as being a place of outstanding natural beauty. We owe that reputation to the diverse range of Scotland’s biodiversity. Our biodiversity supports tourism, farming, forestry, aquaculture and fishing industries. It adds variety to our urban green spaces and contributes hugely to our health, well-being and quality of life. Scotland’s nature can, and does, inspire our people. In recognition of the how important biodiversity is, the Scottish Government, agencies, NGOs, environmental managers and the research community are working hard to improve it.

But the challenge of improving biodiversity applies much further than just in Scotland. The United Nations declared 2011 – 2020 as the ‘Decade on Biodiversity’, with the aim to reduce any loss in biodiversity across the globe. To help achieve this, the European Union set out a strategy that aims to halt biodiversity loss in the EU and help stop global biodiversity loss by 2020. The 2020 Challenge for Scotland’s Biodiversity is Scotland’s response to this and the Scotland’s Biodiversity: a route map to 2020 sets out key priorities for action. The first progress report, published last year, sets out the ambition.

Now, over half way through the decade, the Spotlight on Scotland’s Biodiversity conference is reporting on the progress made on the actions that support biodiversity across Scotland – including the launch of new data and information on Scotland’s environment website.

The conference kicks-off a series of features by Scotland’s environment web about biodiversity – our website has a wealth of information and data to help you explore and learn more about our biodiversity and the work of our partners, who are involved in some exciting activities to help protect it. You can find out about this and more in our next few blogs.

And don’t worry if you miss any of our new blog posts, sign up to our newsletter, and you will be sent a round-up of all the latest news and developments from Scotland’s environment web.

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