Estate

Nature fund awards £5m to tackle biodiversity loss and climate change

Projects to restore Scotland’s unique and rare rainforest; enhance Black Grouse habitat in Southern Scotland, and create robust dune flood defences in St Andrews are among the first recipients of the Scottish Government’s Nature Restoration Fund.

In the first round of funding awards, announced by NatureScot today, a total of £5m will be shared between 54 projects from all over Scotland to restore nature, safeguard wildlife and tackle the causes of climate change.

Among the successful recipients are RSPB Scotland who have been granted £180,000 for rainforest restoration work by removing rhododendron in the Atlantic rainforest of the Morvern peninsula, with a further £10,700 to improve habitats as part of the ambitious Cairngorms Connect project and £160,000 to support restoration of vital wetlands in Orkney.

In South Ayrshire, Forestry and Land Scotland have been granted £30,000 to enhance Black Grouse habitat on Craig Dhu. Habitat loss and overgrazing have resulted in long-term declines in Black Grouse populations across the UK, and this work to restore their habitat is helping their recovery.

While £80,000 has been awarded to the St Andrews Links Trust to support their West Sands dune restoration programme. This collaborative and community-focused project will use ‘building with nature’ principles to raise the level of the dunes from 3m to 6m above sea level; as a further step towards creating a robust, healthy dune system as an effective flood defence.

The Nature Restoration Fund supports a range of urban, rural, marine and coastal focused projects to address the twin crises of biodiversity loss and climate change. The £10m fund was launched in July this year and has now been extended to a total of at least £65m over the next five years.

Scottish farmland most active in Great Britain

The arrival of winter follows what has been an active time for farmland sales in Scotland, compared to Great Britain as a whole.

Evelyn Channing Savills head of rural agency in Scotland comments, “Between July and October there was a continuation of the trends we have seen throughout the year: high demand for farmland from a wide spectrum of buyers and relatively low levels of acres coming on to the market, with resulting increases in values. Indeed the rate of value rises in Scotland has outpaced England,