Draft Marine and Coastal Restoration Plan

Objectives

1. Support improved and more standardised evidence gathering and monitoring for active restoration

• Work with projects and research institutions to develop and share user-friendly, standardised data collection best practices for before, during and post-restoration activity.

2. Improve understanding of how active restoration can contribute to targets and generate environmental, social, and economic benefits

• Develop understanding of ways to measure how restoration efforts contribute towards achieving Good Environmental Status and other targets in our marine environment.  
• Help and encourage projects to capture data on social and economic impacts of active restoration

3. Improve the availability of information on restoration projects in Scotland

• Establish and maintain a database of restoration projects in Scotland, as referred to under Theme 1: Restoration opportunities and priorities 

4. Explore potential contribution of citizen science to data collection and monitoring

Objective 1 – Support improved and  more standardised evidence gathering, monitoring practices and data sharing for active restoration

There is recognition across the restoration sector as well as among funders and public bodies that evidence gathering and monitoring are vital, before, during and after a restoration project has concluded. At the same time, especially for projects that are community-led, it is important to not smother local enthusiasm with mountains of paperwork.

Evidence gathering and monitoring needs to be proportionate to the scale of the project and resources available, and specific to the habitat, species or ecosystem being restored. To help make this easier for projects to carry out, we will work with NatureScot and restoration networks to build on the expertise already present in the sector to explore if we can develop robust but user friendly monitoring protocols.

This will be vital to maximising the potential environmental benefits of active restoration, and will support or enable a range of wider objectives and actions under the plan, including promoting a place-based approach, and the development of a protection mechanism for restoration. It will also be critical to supporting innovation in the sector. We want to encourage piloting of new restoration methods, and this will need to be underpinned by robust approaches to evidence and monitoring.

Finally, we want to consider how data can be shared and fed through to wider systems, such as the Geodatabase of Marine Features adjacent to Scotland (GeMS)  and the Feature Activity Sensitivity Tool (FeAST).

Objective 2 - Improve our understanding of how active restoration can contribute to targets and generate environmental, social, and economic benefits

We know from international examples that active restoration can be instrumental in revitalising ecosystems. The Marine Strategy Regulations 2010 require the UK and Devolved Governments to put measures in place to achieve or maintain Good Environmental Status  through the production of a Marine Strategy for all UK marine waters. However, we do not yet have a clear picture of how we can best gather data on restoration to capture if and how it contributes to achievement of this and other targets.

Capturing data on ecological outcomes is an important part of the picture, but restoration can bring many other benefits to local areas. As noted in the previous theme, restoration projects generate jobs and skills, overnight stays and educational opportunities often in rural, coastal and island communities. Capturing quantitative and qualitative data on these wider benefits is essential in understanding restoration’s role as part of community wealth building.

Objective 3 – Improve the availability of information on restoration projects in Scotland

Under Theme 1: Restoration opportunities and priorities, we set out the benefits of a database of active restoration projects in relation to providing better oversight and enabling place-based approaches to restoration.

A database will also improve the availability of information about what and where restoration activities are taking place in Scotland. If this includes information relating to evidence and monitoring, such data can be used to inform wider restoration efforts and contribute to reporting requirements.   

Objective 4 – Explore potential for citizen science to contribute to data collection and monitoring

As part of the drive to stimulate and build on innovation in the restoration sector, we want to explore how tools like citizen science can complement existing data collection and monitoring. With the right guidance and support in place, citizen science could provide valuable data and encourage wider participation in restoration activities.