The National Biodiversity Network (NBN) Trust welcomes the publication of the Scottish Biodiversity Strategy Delivery Plan 2025-2030. This ambitious framework represents a significant step forward in addressing Scotland’s biodiversity crisis, underpinned by commitments to statutory targets and comprehensive actions to halt and reverse nature loss.
As a leading organisation committed to mobilising and sharing biodiversity data to inform decision-making, we are particularly encouraged by the strategy’s emphasis on evidence-based approaches to ecosystem restoration, species conservation, and sustainable land and sea management. The integration of robust monitoring frameworks and clear, measurable targets will be critical to ensuring the strategy’s success.
We especially welcome the alignment of this strategy with the objectives of the Better Biodiversity Data (BBD) project, led by the NBN Trust with support from NatureScot and the Scottish Government, and the commitment to the creation of a National Biodiversity Data Hub. This new hub, recommended by the 2018 Scottish Biodiversity Information Forum (SBIF) review of the nation’s biological recording infrastructure, has the potential to transform biodiversity data management and use by providing services across national and local scales, ensuring that evidence is accessible and actionable for decision-makers.
Local Environmental Records Centres (LERCs) as well as recording groups and schemes in Scotland are critical to this effort. These organisations play a vital role in collecting and curating high-quality biodiversity data, often working directly with communities and volunteers. The National Biodiversity Data Hub must prioritise supporting and integrating the work of such local groups and bodies, recognising their essential contributions to evidence-based conservation and decision-making.
However, to ensure the success of this delivery plan, long-term investment in Scotland’s biodiversity data infrastructure is essential. This includes enhancing the flow and widescale sharing of data important to nature’s recovery, to build a comprehensive and accessible evidence base. Achieving such an ambitious goal will require further sustained and significant financial investment. Funding must support both large-scale data infrastructure and restoration projects as well as and local initiatives, such as those led by LERCs, recording groups, and national schemes, which are foundational to biodiversity action.
We applaud the commitment to develop statutory nature restoration targets and welcome the integration of the forthcoming Natural Environment Bill into this strategy, as well as a new Biodiversity Investment Plan. These steps have the potential to drive transformative change for Scotland’s natural environment.
The NBN Trust stands ready to support the delivery of this plan by mobilising biodiversity data, fostering collaboration, and promoting data-driven insights in nature recovery efforts. We also commit to working closely with the Scottish Government and other partners to ensure that the new National Biodiversity Hub delivers on its potential to empower local and national conservation efforts. The delivery plan, made in consultation with the biodiversity recording community, is a strong starting point, and must be implemented with urgency and resourced at a level commensurate with the scale of the challenge.
Scotland’s biodiversity is not only a cornerstone of its natural heritage but also a critical component of its resilience to climate change and other environmental pressures.