Scotland must urgently ramp up public investments in nature protection, a group of NGO has said, expressing concerns over the impact of biodiversity credits following the government’s plans to support the development of the voluntary market in the country.
Scottish Environment Link, a coalition of 45 environmental organisations, has released a position paper calling for increased efforts to close the country’s financing gap on biodiversity, estimated at £20 billion for the next decade.
While the government set the target of restoring and regenerating biodiversity across Scotland’s land, freshwater, and seas by 2045, current financing is far from enough, the group said.
“Significantly more money is needed to flow into nature protection and restoration now, to meet the monumental challenge of reversing the nature and climate crises by 2045,” said the paper, whose signatories include the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management (CIEEM), Scottish Wildlife Trust, and Woodland Trust Scotland.
“The cost of active intervention could be lowered through effective regulation and other policy mechanisms, for example effective deer management. The level of investment required will also grow over time if effective intervention is not taken quickly enough.”
The group called on the government to significantly increase public investment in nature while ensuring existing funding is used more effectively by ending subsidies for harmful activities.
Public budgets should be reviewed to boost positive impacts on nature, it added, stressing the need for legislation and fiscal measures that support biodiversity protection efforts.
“The Scottish and UK governments … should seek to ensure that effective codes of good practice are mandatory or conditions of grant funding,” said the paper.
CREDITING CONCERNS
Scottish Environment Link also urged the government to take action to ensure that carbon offset projects lead to positive biodiversity outcomes.
“The Scottish government should assess the powers it has with a view to ensuring that the operation of carbon offset credits in Scotland enhances biodiversity, and that they comply with strict additionality and integrity conditions and do not adversely affect its own climate change planning,” said the paper.
Despite acknowledging that different financing mechanisms must be deployed to address the ongoing biodiversity crisis, the group questioned the role of the emerging biodiversity credit market as a viable solution to channel funding towards nature protection and restoration.
“There are no agreed systems for biodiversity credits, and there are considerable doubts about whether it is even possible to create simple and reliable measures for them given the complexity of ecological systems,” said the paper.
“Putting aside the numerous methodological difficulties which mitigate against the creation of effective systems on which markets might be based, some Link members regard attempts to financialise nature as dangerous and counterproductive.”
Scotland does not have a clear biodiversity credit plan yet, but project developer CreditNature is in the process of developing a platform for biodiversity credits in the country, backed by the government.
Earlier this month, London-based asset manager Gresham House told Carbon Pulse it is preparing for the possibility of generating voluntary biodiversity credits from parts of its forestry sites in Scotland.
By Sergio Colombo – sergio@carbon-pulse.com
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