Scotland’s Land Reform Bill is in its final throes with the intention that voting will be completed this week. It has some important implications for reversing biodiversity loss, particularly for those larger landowners whose holdings exceed 1000 hectares. It will require them to produce plans setting out how they intend to boosting biodiversity as well as reduce emissions and adapt to a changing climate.
Of course the production of plans does not inherently lead to practical action and critics argue that Scottish government needs to offer support and more tangible financial incentives for this to have significant impact. Nevertheless it appears to be a step in the right direction.
How does this impact on land owners in East Lothian? Approximately 420,000 ha of land in East Lothian is formally registered in ScotLIS by Registers of Scotland – this means it has probably changed ownership in recent decades. This represents about 60% of all land in East Lothian – as such roughly 40% of East Lothian’s land is not on ScotLIS and is likely to rely on the older SASINES register for holding the title.
Of the 60% of East Lothian land in ScotLIS, 277,000 ha is classified as within a title of over 1000 ha in size. So 66% of land (or only about 100 land holdings) in East Lothian that we know about falls into the “Above 1000 ha” category. This suggests the 1000 ha threshold is relatively significant – large tracts of land fall into it. And, in reality, this percentage is likely to be higher given a significant number of estates have not changed ownership and therefore remain outside of ScotLIS.
In conclusion, a significant chunk of East Lothian will need to be covered by plans aimed at boosting biodiversity. Whether that leads to tangible biodiversity ‘net gains’ we’ll have to wait and see.
The Scottish government has committed to what is termed “30 by 30”, that is protecting at least 30% of land (and 30% of our marine habitat) specifically for nature by 2030. Currently only 18% of Scotland’s land is protected through area designations like SSSIs and, even with this level of protection, only 70% of these sites are considered to be in a ‘favourable’ condition.
We would need a major intervention by the Scottish government to add an additional 12% of land dedicated to nature restoration. Currently applications are open to landowners, communities, companies and public bodies to define new ‘Nature30’ sites of local importance for biodiversity. These sites will get assessed through a process overseen by NatureScot. They should ideally contribute towards the development of nature networks and meet specific criteria around long-term management, size and governance.
For more information see https://www.nature.scot/nature30.