Meeting our '30 by 30' biodiversity commitment on terrestrial and freshwater sites: consultation on legislative proposals

Protected areas in Scotland work by identifying individual natural features (habitats, species populations or geology/geomorphology) to be protected on a site. Management of the site is then focused on maintaining those features in a favourable condition, which generally means keeping them as they were at the time of designation. This can cause problems where there are natural features on a site requiring different or conflicting management to reach or maintain favourable condition. This can sometimes mean that two or more such features cannot be in favourable condition at the same time, or if they can it can require very intensive management measures aimed at preventing any change. Not only can this sometimes be difficult to achieve, it can also be at the expense of delivering greater biodiversity benefits and resilience of ecosystems.

For example, in an upland context, areas of species rich grassland often form mosaics with dry heath habitats. Maintaining the species richness of the grassland requires a higher level of grazing than is needed to maintain the biodiversity in the heathland. As a result, a decision must be made to focus the management objectives for the site on maintaining either the grassland or the heath in favourable condition, at the expense of the other habitat.

The static nature of the designation also means that there is little or no flexibility to adapt management to changing circumstances over which we have no direct control, in particular climate and other environmental changes.  This creates particular difficulties where changes in species ranges or species competition ‘within habitat’ mean that the feature for which a site is protected may be sparse or entirely absent, or that another species which might otherwise be protected has to be ‘managed’. Species range changes (e.g. geese populations) and within habitat species changes (e.g. oak becoming more prominent than Scots pine in lower-level mixed native woodland), both driven by climate change are already being seen.

In addition, focusing solely on individual ‘natural features’ represents a failure to recognise the importance of interactions across different habitat types and the species populations they support (the ecosystem). Ecosystems are dynamic, and will comprise different, changing habitats over time in response to changing conditions, and create particularly biodiversity rich areas. Transitional habitats also occur on the boundaries between different areas of habitat, and are an important element of a biodiversity-rich ecosystem. They allow space for the process of natural succession to progress. For example, as part of the natural regeneration of native woodland, there often develops an area of scrubby vegetation as a precursor to woodland expansion. These areas are favoured by black grouse.

There may be some instances where Scotland holds particular global responsibility for certain habitats (e.g. machair grassland) or species (e.g. Freshwater Pearl Mussel) where proactive, focused management will be particularly important to try and adapt to the environmental changes taking place with a view to perpetuating the species in that location. Nevertheless, a more flexible approach would enable recognition of the importance of the overall ecosystem, its functions and essential services, in addition to existing single features. Increasing options which provide additional flexibility would better focus management, whilst accommodating the requirements of rare or vulnerable species on the site. It is also hoped such changes would make it easier for land managers/owners to take a more holistic view in management for biodiversity in an area, which is better able to adapt to changing environmental conditions.