More urgently than ever before, in tackling the biodiversity crisis and climate emergency, we need relevant and up-to-date information to guide effective action and assess success. But obtaining a sufficiently complete and up-to-date account of species in Scotland has been hampered by a dwindling pool of amateur expertise, complex data flows, and gaps in data collection and service provision.

As the most comprehensive audit of its kind, the SBIF Review was shortlisted for the Nature of Scotland Innovation Award 2018 and won the CIEEM Best Practice Stakeholder Engagement Award 2019.

The SBIF Vision

The SBIF ambition – for Scotland but also applicable to the UK – is to have an improved infrastructure for recording, managing, sharing and using wildlife data.  The need to get this underway is urgent, whilst recognising that a degree of iteration and further thought will be required to determine the scale and pace of implementation.

 

In December 2019, SBIF presented a programme proposal to Scottish Government outlining the investment necessary to implement the 24 SBIF Review Recommendations.  It made the case for sufficient sustainable public funding to transform our recording infrastructure and catalyse long-term funding from other sectors.  It set out six projects that would undertake the necessary transformation by 2025. The Better Biodiversity Data project is addressing some of the key recommendations set out in the SBIF Review.

Read the SBIF Review Final Report