The Geographer: Farming for a 1.5°C Future (Summer 2021)

The

Geographer Summer 2021

The newsletter of

the Royal Scottish Geographical Society

Farming for a 1.5°C Future Mapping Agricultural Transformation “The land was forever, it moved and changed below you, but was forever.”

Lewis Grassic Gibbon

• Ban Ki-moon, Livingstone Medallist • Agroforestry, Arable and Activism • Dairy, Development Aid and Deh Cho Elders • Ruminants, Renewables and Rainfall Distribution • Whole-Farm Approach • Tim Flannery, Geddes Environment Medallist • JY Simpson’s Lithuanian Legacy • The Year We’ve Had: A Thank You • Reader Offer: James Croll

plus news, books and more...

The

Geographer

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hope you are well and enjoying some renewed freedoms as things begin to unlock slowly.

For the past two years I have been privileged to co-chair an Inquiry called Farming for 1.5°C, alongside Nigel Miller, a previous president of the National Farmers Union of Scotland. This magazine is aimed at exploring some of the many topics that have arisen from that Inquiry, as the industry aims to wrestle with the complex issue of reducing emissions across the sector, whilst still producing food, providing space for biodiversity, and operating robust businesses.

The sector has struggled to reduce emissions over the most recent decade and is under pressure to do more. The targets require that. The Government requires it. And the Union is determined to respond – both to help play its part in this necessary national ambition, and to overcome the often-negative portrayal of farming on this issue.

Responding to climate change is not optional. It is already happening, and it will impact farming dramatically. And we are already late to the party – the chance of exceeding 1.5°C in the next five years is already 50/50. There are obvious direct impacts on land and water supplies, and more indirect changes afoot, around diet and market trends. The Farming for 1.5°C Inquiry is not only trying to help identify the most practical ways to help the industry adapt and respond to climate change; it also aims to target the way funding and support are given, to make the industry more robust.

If we can get a wider acceptance of the fact that farmers and land managers are essential champions of change, we hope we can also get recognition of the need to pay the industry not just for food production, but also for other positives such as carbon sequestration, restorative soil management, flood alleviation and biodiversity gains. This Inquiry is critical. It is not about whether to respond to climate change – scientists, national and international governments, and the farmers’ unions themselves have already made it clear that they must. The Inquiry is about how to best respond and how to help bring the industry in line with the science, whilst ensuring we have a robust agricultural sector long into the future. In this edition of The Geographer we have attempted to bring together some of the key voices from across the sector, to help illuminate the plans and progress of Scotland’s farming sector, along with a mix of other articles as ever. I do hope you enjoy it.

Kind regards, Mike Robinson, Chief Executive, RSGS

RSGS, Lord John Murray House, 15-19 North Port, Perth, PH1 5LU tel: 01738 455050 email: enquiries@rsgs.org

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www.rsgs.org Charity registered in Scotland no SC015599 The views expressed in this newsletter are not necessarily those of the RSGS. Cover image: Harvesting ripe wheat. © Aleksandr Rybalko Masthead image: © Mike Robinson

RSGS: a better way to see the world

Climate Solutions Accelerator The Accelerator course, launched in December, has been very popularly received and we are delighted to report that international giant Jacobs Engineering Group has taken it on for all of its 55,000 global taskforce. Jacobs is the third organisation to adopt it for all staff, but the first to roll it out globally; it means that around 60,000 people have now subscribed to this course since its launch.

Zoe Haseman, Jacobs’ VicePresident of Global Sustainability, told us, “As we look ahead to COP26, we cannot underestimate the importance of greater collaboration and education for transformational action on climate change. Partnering with the RSGS to create the Climate Solutions Accelerator course has provided a valuable learning resource to educate our people and empower them to act. We hope the course provides other businesses with the common grounding and knowledge of the science that helps people understand the challenge, the opportunities for change, and how they can take action.

It is only by garnering a collective response that we can ensure business, the communities in which we live and work, wider society, and our natural environment survive and thrive for generations to come.”

Steve Demetriou, Jacobs’ Chair and Chief Executive Officer, said, “How we respond to the threat of climate change requires all of us to work together – businesses, governments and communities around the world. Our shareholders are becoming increasingly focused on Environmental, Social and Governance transparency.

Our clients are talking to us every day about how to decarbonize their businesses and move towards meeting national industry targets. And, our employees consistently expect Jacobs to lead by example when it comes to sustainability and climate action. Our collaboration with the RSGS is focused on education, knowing that this is the vital first step on the journey to action. The Climate Solutions Accelerator course is designed to help empower businesses to focus on what they can do and how they can incorporate those changes into purposeful business strategies. It is the collective decisions we make every day through the work we deliver for our clients and the way we live our lives at home that can significantly impact our shift towards a low-carbon future and a more sustainable tomorrow for all.”

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COP26 appeal

Chalk Talks

With the UN Climate Conference (COP26) scheduled to come to Glasgow in November, 2021 is a hugely significant year for climate change action. The RSGS has an important role to play, and so we have launched a fundraising appeal please (www.rsgs.org/appeal/cop26) to support our work help us if on climate change in the lead up to COP26. This you can is a unique opportunity. Please help us to make a difference.

We are pleased to say we have released all of our RSGS Chalk Talks for the Higher Geography curriculum! Some of our most recent additions are Development and Health, Climate Change, and River Basin Management. Our National 5 Geography collection is also coming along, with most Chalk Talks now added. These free online lessons are for Geography students working from home to use as study aids. All Chalk Talks are available to watch through our website (www.rsgs.org/chalk-talks) or on YouTube.

RSGS policy work RSGS Chief Executive Mike Robinson has recently joined the Climate Action Taskforce in Glasgow, hosted by TEDx Glasgow and the UN Climate Champions team, helping promote the push for businesses to sign up to the Race to Net Zero. He has also been asked to join the Open University Scottish External Advisory Group, further cementing our ongoing collaboration with the OU. And he has given talks for NFUS, Zero Waste Scotland, Perth Key Agencies Group, the Rotary Club, the YMCA, and the Perth Ambassadors.

We have been working with a number of universities, most notably this past quarter with University of Dundee, Open University, and University of Stirling. And work has been ongoing with SCIAF, Ordnance Survey, Institute of Directors, Royal Canadian Geographical Society, Scottish Government, the Royal Scientific Society of Jordan, Young Scot, Highlands & Islands Enterprise, ScottishPower, Baillie Gifford, and the various committees on which we participate, particularly with Scotland’s Climate Assembly which reported in March, a process in which both Mike and RSGS President Iain Stewart were involved as expert advisors.

Jim Carson OBE FRSGS We are sad to report that Jim Carson – RSGS Fellow and Tivy Education Medallist, and founder of the Scottish Association of Geography Teachers (SAGT) – died in April. Our thoughts are with his wife, Sheila, and the family.

Gordon Macfarlane, RSGS Glasgow Group Secretary, remarked, “Jim had been a stalwart of the Society for many decades, serving for a great many years on the local group committee and organising the annual Schools Competition. In his working life, Jim taught Geography, ultimately becoming Advisor in Geography for Glasgow Division, and was very highly regarded. He received the honour of OBE for Services to Education. Jim had a quiet manner but was always eager to encourage others and keen to support the Society in all its activities. The members of the committee will miss that encouragement and Jim’s cheerful enthusiasm.”

Elaine Batty of SAGT reflected the thoughts of many who knew him. “His passion for our subject never diminished and I, and many others, will treasure those beautiful handwritten notes he sent to mark various events.”

We would like to give our thanks to Dollar Academy, Morrison’s Academy, Kilgraston School and Speyside High School for their great work in recording these lessons, and to Mort&Pal Video Productions for editing the videos. And thank you to all of you who donated to the Helping Hand for Schools appeal, making the project possible in the first place.

See page 32 for a list of all the video lessons.

Geddes Environment Medal In April, we were delighted to host a fascinating evening of conversation between Professor Iain Stewart, Dr Vanessa Collingridge, and Professor Tim Flannery, an internationally acclaimed scientist, explorer and conservationist, and one of Australia’s leading and awardwinning writers on climate change.

To round off the event, we presented Professor Flannery with our Geddes Environment Medal. In a later interview with RSGS Writer-in-Residence Jo Woolf, he said, “Can I just say how immensely proud I am to have this Medal.

It’s just extraordinary to me that I would be thought of in the same breath as Greta Thunberg and the other recipients!”

See pages 40-41 for the full interview report.

Inspiring People Following the completion of our 2020-21 Inspiring People talks season, we are able to reflect on the success of our programme after moving online for the first time. Over the entire season we received over 10,000 households, with an average of 400 households attending each talk – an amazing feat considering the limitations that the Covid-19 pandemic initially presented. We are still trying to plan a deliverable programme of talks for the 202122 season. While we hope to return to normal faceto-face talks when eventually practicable, members have made it clear they would like us to continue with some online provision.

catch up online

If you missed some of the talks, or would like to watch them again, head to www.rsgs.org/videos to catch up; although not all of the talks are available, most of them are.

And sign up for our e-newsletter to be among the first to receive updates regarding future talks and events.

2 Summer 2021

news

Space technology in seafood sector Climate Carbon Champion

An Edinburgh-based company, Space Intelligence, which converts satellite data into usable information for businesses, has been asked to collaborate with Scottish fishing to assess how useful this method of data collection could be to the industry. According to Fisheries Innovation Scotland (FIS), it is the first time that satellite technology has been utilised to support the Scottish fishing industry in this way. FIS have commented that the collaboration highlights the innovative nature of an industry commonly considered traditional and old-fashioned.

Space Intelligence CEO Murray Collins believes that the research could lead to future projects such as monitoring fish stocks, improving fisheries management, and helping scientists understand the effects of climate change on the ocean.

New RSGS Trustees At our AGM in May, we were delighted to welcome two new Trustees who will join the RSGS Board. David Howe is a General Manager at Microsoft, leading their enterprise services David Howe Kenneth Muir business across Europe, Middle East and Africa. He holds an MBA from London Business School, and has studied Sustainable Mountain Development at the University of the Highlands and Islands.

Kenneth Muir began his career as a teacher of Geography, Geology and Modern Studies in Ayrshire. He worked for many years for Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education, and retired in March from his post as Chief Executive and Registrar of the General Teaching Council for Scotland.

Ron Guild supports James Croll Ron Guild, an RSGS member since 1953, a geography teacher at Fettes College, and a long-standing member of the RSGS textbook committee, died recently. His son Alastair visited Perth to hand in some of his father’s books and to make a generous donation of £1,500 towards the publication of our new illustrated book about James Croll (see back cover).

He told us, “Recalling my father Ronald’s lifelong interest in and passion for geography and his many years contributing to the work of the Society, I’m sure he would be delighted to be supporting the publication of such a book.”

Mr Barbour of Fincastle won the competition with a threeminute video where he communicated the benefits of planting trees, species-rich grassland, rotational grazing and stitching nitrogen-fixing crops into pastures. The film was described by judges as “perfect advertising for Scottish farming”; they highlighted the film’s importance in facilitating the reduction of emissions by promoting the adoption of sustainable farming practices by others in the industry. They further highlighted that when reviewing all the applications they received, it was amazing to see so many farmers in Scotland adopting sustainable farming to make their businesses more resilient.

Scottish farming and climate change Five farmer-led groups established by the Scottish Government have submitted proposals after being tasked with devising ways in which Scottish agriculture can become more environmentally friendly. Each group covered a different sector of farming: arable; dairy; hill, upland and crofting; pigs; and suckler beef. Proposals from the groups included several different approaches to sustainable farming specifically designed around their sector.

A common suggestion amongst the groups was for capital support to allow for investment into more sustainable farming for their sector. Other suggestions included establishing baselines for emissions, adopting methods for monitoring, and developing route maps for the implementation of mitigation measures.

New staff Mike Robinson, RSGS Chief Executive I’m sure you will all join us in wishing the best to staff members James Cave and Anne Daniel, who left us in March and May respectively. James has joined the charity Holly McNair Sophie Walker SCIAF in Glasgow as a Video & Content Production Officer, and Anne has retired.

We are sorry to see them go, but I’m pleased to say we have been able to appoint new staff in Holly McNair who takes over as Communications Officer, and Sophie Walker who is supporting our climate solutions activities. I hope you will get to meet them both as restrictions begin to ease.

farming

See pages 14-15 for an article about Space Technology’s innovative habitat map project.

A farmer in Pitlochry has been named Scotland’s Climate Carbon Champion in a competition organised by the National Farmers’ Union, supported by the Royal Society of Biology, which encouraged farmers to film the steps that they are taking to become environmentally friendly on the farm.

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Goats on Zoom

The People Vs Climate Change

You can now add a new guest onto your Zoom call – a goat! Cronkshaw Farm in Rossendale are offering a unique service to brighten up video calls. For £5 you can hire a goat to join a scheduled meeting. The idea, which started as a joke, has now earned the farm £50k, which they intend to use converting their farm to renewable power!

After Ice A new BBC documentary film, The People Vs Climate Change, follows the UK’s first citizens’ assembly on climate change; where 108 ordinary Brits chosen at random were tasked with deciding what we should be doing to meet our climate change goals. Filmmakers describe the project as “a new kind of democracy at play” where reasonable discussion amongst civilians is used to inform political decisions.

Breiðamerkurjökull, 1982 and 2020.

Dr Baxter, an expert in the visual communication of glacial retreat, highlights that the rate of decline, of tens and sometimes hundreds of metres every year, never fails to shock. He hopes that this documentary will highlight the impacts that greenhouse gases are having on the natural world. After Ice can be viewed at www.climatevis.com/after-ice.

£1tn cost of invasive species Invasive species have cost £1 trillion to the world economy, according to a report (High and rising economic costs of biological invasions worldwide) published in the journal Nature.

When faced with this massive cost, researchers “spent months verifying our models to make sure we were not exaggerating.”

The research highlights that the prevalence of biological invasions is continuously worsened by globalisation and climate change. An increase in world trade allows opportunities for more species invasions, and the effect of increased pressure on our environment has made our societies more vulnerable to the impacts. Researchers estimate that species invasion is the second most prominent cause of species extinction.

The film, available to watch exclusively on BBC iPlayer, has been praised for moving away from apocalyptic narratives of climate change, instead aiming for a focus on positive solutions.

Seaweed diet for cattle A Lewis-based seaweed company, Hebridean Seaweed, is in partnership with academics to test the theory that seaweed could offer an answer to the large amount of methane produced by cattle. Research by the University of California found that putting small amounts of seaweed in cattle feed could reduce methane emissions from beef cattle by 82%.

farming

Dr Kieran Baxter from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, working with associates from the University of Iceland, depicts the effect of climate change on Iceland’s glaciers in the documentary film After Ice. The four-year project features images from the 1940s and 1980s, reconstructed in 3D and overlaid with modern drone footage, to express the effect that greenhouse gas emissions have had.

Chris Stark, Chief Executive of the Climate Change Committee, said that the film demonstrated the need for an informed discussion about climate change in this country, and showed that people respond to climate change positively when they have access to trusted and accurate information. Nigel Topping, the UK’s High-Level Climate Action Champion for COP26, was amazed at how quickly people were able to reach a consensus and suggest sophisticated solutions when presented with facts.

Previous research used Asparagopsis taxiformis, a species of red algae found in tropical waters. So, the question now is whether Scotland’s seaweed (of which we have an abundance) could have the same effect. Hebridean Seaweed says there is no reason to believe that Scotland’s seaweeds will not be effective in mitigating cattle methane, but hopes to confirm this through research.

Croll conference In April, after two years of planning, the RSGS hosted a wholeday online bicentenary commemoration of the birth of James Croll, with co-sponsorship from the Quaternary Research Association (QRA). The meeting, with 14 presentations and lively question and answer sessions, explored Croll as a person and as a scientist, with specialists drawn from the worlds of science, history and popularisation. Well over 100 households attended the successful event, which was organised and introduced by Professor Kevin Edwards.

4 Summer 2021

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Climate Emergency Summit on transport Our Climate Emergency Summits provide a space for motivated people from across sectors to come together in a safe and open workshop environment. These facilitated sessions are designed to use the collective expertise of participants to highlight purposeful actions and good practice examples, and to influence policy making. We are grateful to Paths for All for their support through the Smarter Choices Smarter Places Fund, and to Transform Scotland, for their help in making the transport summit happen.

Juliet Robertson, Chair of Transform Scotland, introduced the event, commenting that “in 2020 people’s transport choices changed through necessity and desperation; while this is neither desirable nor sustainable, it has given us a glimpse of what is possible.

In 2021 I have hope that our travel behaviours will change through better understanding, improved choices and a real desire to help ourselves and others.”

Katrine Aqueduct upgrade

In mid-May, collaborating with Creative Scotland, we ran a Climate Emergency Summit with nearly 100 participants, to consider the role the creative industry can play. There was a clear resolve to respond to the issue within day-to-day business operations, and to go much further than that, by reflecting some of the less-heard voices and, importantly, by inspiring people to respond and use the power of creativity to help portray issues and possible future scenarios.

Various challenges were laid out by a series of provocations, including one TV Report by the Albert Committee at BAFTA, which showed the lack of coverage and popularity of climate content. According to this report, in 2018 ‘climate change’ was mentioned on-screen with a frequency comparable to ‘urine’ and ‘zombies’. A fourfold increase in 2019 elevated the issue to join ‘poo’ and ‘nonsense’. The report went on to state that ‘climate change’ is still dwarfed by the industry’s presentations of eating ‘beef’ and ‘flying’, so there is clearly lots still to do.

OS using AI to map African cities Sub-Saharan Africa is urbanising twice as fast as Europe.

Like many cities in the region, Zambia’s capital, Lusaka, is expanding at a rapid rate as the rural population flocks to the city for work. Shanty towns have sprung up, but Lusaka’s infrastructure is struggling to keep up.

Official maps of the city are out of date and, with no land registry and very few surveyors, the government urgently needs a more accurate and up-to-date map to allow the authorities to provide utilities to the newlydeveloped areas. So, using aerial imagery provided by the Zambian government, Ordnance Survey will use AI to generate a new, detailed map across 420km2 of Lusaka.

Global forest regrowth A £20m upgrade to the Katrine Aqueduct has been unveiled. Built in 1855 and regarded as one of the greatest engineering projects of its time, the aqueduct was famously built by 3,000 workers by boring and blasting through the mountainside, in hopes of ending the prevalence of lethal waterborne diseases such as cholera. Due to this, it became a primary water reserve for much of Glasgow City.

A recent study from the Trillion Trees Project has estimated that forest area equivalent to the size of France has regrown globally since the year 2000.

This equates to 59 million hectares of forest with a storage capacity of 5.9 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide. The organization considered more than 30 years’ worth of satellite imaging data and surveyed over 100 sites in 29 different countries.

Today there are two Loch Katrine aqueducts, the second built in 1901 to accommodate the rapidly expanding population of Glasgow. Together, they provide Glasgow with 110m gallons of water a day. The fact that the original aqueduct is still operational has been heralded as a testament to the workers involved in its construction. The upgrade, undertaken by Scottish Water, was carried out over two years by a team of 35 workers. A total of 17 miles of tunnel sections and ten bridge sections have undergone repairs.

They have conceptualised this data by presenting it through an interactive map on their website (trilliontrees.org/highlight/ mapping-forest-regeneration), depicting areas of forest regrowth and the reasoning behind regeneration. Reasons varied from active restoration projects to spontaneous forest regeneration, which in some areas still remains unexplained. The organization now aims to further develop their understanding of the reasons behind forest regrowth to help inform restoration projects on their best areas of action in the future.

University News

It is with profound sadness that we report that Paths for All Chief Executive Ian Findlay, our good friend and champion of the environment movement, passed away suddenly in early March. Ian delivered one of our ‘five-minute provocations’ at this event, which he closed with typically powerful words of wisdom in a quote from Brent Toderian: “The truth about a country’s aspirations is not found in its vision. It’s found in its budget.”

Creative summit in May

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Ban Ki-moon, RSGS Livingstone Medallist Mike Robinson, RSGS Chief Executive

In March 2021, we were delighted to present our prestigious Livingstone Medal to His Excellency Ban Ki-moon, in recognition of his positive contribution and long-standing dedication to global humanitarian issues on a wide number of fronts.

The RSGS Livingstone Medal was endowed by RSGS cofounder Mrs Agnes Livingstone-Bruce in memory of her father Dr David Livingstone, and was first awarded in 1901 to explorer Sir Harry H Johnston. The Medal has been awarded only occasionally, and has focused on recognising those individuals who have made a significant impact on raising the profile of or directly addressing humanitarian causes around the world.

Mr Ban, on receiving the Medal at his Foundation headquarters in South Korea, was magnanimous in his thanks. “It is with great humility and gratitude that I receive the Livingstone Medal, an award with such a rich and distinguished history. As I accept this award, I want to use this moment to pay tribute to all who have succumbed to COVID-19 and to recognise all who champion climate justice and environmental action.”

Mr Ban has held many senior global roles, most notably in his capacity as the eighth Secretary-General of the United Nations (January 2007 to December 2016), and in his role as an Elder. He became the first major international diplomat to throw his weight behind the ‘Green New Deal’, aimed at tackling climate change and poverty, and he is a huge advocate of the importance of education and children’s rights.

gravely concerned. Children in vulnerable countries already face disproportionate risks and challenging adaptations to climate-induced changes.”

“‘The fight against climate change and the vital efforts towards meeting the Sustainable Development Goals can only be achieved with all of humanity working together.’”

He made reference to the upcoming UN COP26 in Glasgow later this year. “The confluence of problems humanity has wrought upon itself and upon nature means we face a threat that knows no borders, that affects all nations and all people. Tackling the climate emergency needs all our leadership, all our ingenuity, all our resourcefulness. The 26th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26) in Glasgow in November will be an historic occasion. Even against a background of extraordinary challenges resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, I want to recognise the opportunity we have to create a safer, fairer and healthier planet for all. Humanity stands at the crossroad of its destiny. It is an opportunity we must seize.

“While this award has been bestowed on me personally, I want to take this opportunity to categorically say that this is not work I have done alone! The fight against climate change and the vital efforts towards meeting the Sustainable Development Goals can only be achieved with all of humanity working together.

“I particularly want to highlight the contributions of children and young people. Climate change is a critical threat to human societies, nature and the planet. Without urgent global action, its impacts will be catastrophic – the climate crisis will have a particularly profound impact on coming generations. Children and young people are right to be

Mr Ban has championed the role of good education in solving sustainability. He provided a short video for inclusion into RSGS’s new online Climate Solutions course for managers.

“Education plays an essential role in the evermore urgent fight against climate change.

Knowledge helps us all to understand and tackle the consequences of global warming, it encourages behaviour change, and it helps us to adapt to what is already a global emergency.

Education creates the platform for the kind of understanding and innovation we need.

When we consider the climate crisis it would be easy to focus on what humans have done wrong- there is no shortage of examples. But instead, I want to urge us all to reflect on what is possible when humanity is at its best!

It is not too late for us all to work together, to change the trajectory for our planet, and to build a better future for our children and grandchildren.”

Mr Ban has lived and breathed many of the critical global events that have defined the past 20 years or more. From helping address drought in Darfur, to negotiations on nuclear weapons in Iran and establishing the Millennium Development Goals, to promoting climate change education and action, he has been at the heart of international diplomacy on many of the most critical issues of our lifetimes. He has always made great efforts to champion those less fortunate and in need, providing support for many who don’t have a voice at the highest tables. His work has inspired many people and a good deal of change in many countries across the world, and his continued and inexhaustible commitment and passion for making the world a better place is a beacon of light for many.

I am delighted he has accepted this award and to welcome him as an Honorary Fellow and Medallist of the RSGS.

6 Summer 2021

Farming for a 1.5°C future Mike Robinson, RSGS Chief Executive, and Co-Chair of Farming for 1.5°C Inquiry

For the past two years, a wide-ranging group of farmers, experts, practitioners and campaigners have been part of a major Inquiry on how to help Scottish agriculture deliver against Scotland’s climate change commitments (www. farming1point5.org). The Farming for 1.5°C Inquiry has taken evidence from experts from across the UK and further afield, to develop a plan of how farmers and land managers can achieve net zero, and aid wider Scottish society in meeting its climate targets. It also aims to identify how Government and others can help this vital sector to deliver.

Scotland will not and cannot deliver against its net zero targets without the full engagement of the agricultural and land use sectors, and so it is vital that farmers and the agricultural industry as a whole get behind the national targets, and are encouraged and assisted in any way necessary to achieve their own net zero. Climate change and biodiversity loss are both urgent issues, and so the sooner we can see a more consistent and holistic approach the better.

“Scotland and the UK cannot achieve their climate targets without the active engagement of the farming sector.”

Many of the findings of the Inquiry’s report will most likely help to set a pathway for the industry and, importantly, for government in support of the industry after 2024. However, it is critical that as many actions as possible are accelerated as soon as possible. Baseline studies need to be completed, demonstration projects need to be established, and efforts need to be made in the immediate future to build good examples, test good practice, trial new ideas, and increase the profile and regard of key individuals and organisations in tackling these vital issues. These targets are challenging but necessary, and it is essential the industry responds positively, not just for the future of sustainable agriculture, but for all of our futures. The agricultural sector has not shown any significant reductions in emissions over the last decade, and has resisted some calls to change, hampered at least in part by an overly one-dimensional discussion about meat.

But I sense that this has shifted. The appetite for, and the understanding of the need for, change are the highest they have ever been in the industry, and there is a real opportunity going forwards for farmers to be seen as champions of climate change, and not as the perpetrators or simply unwilling victims of it.

Much needs to change, but not all of that change is in the hands, or gift, of our farmers. Subsidies need to shift. How we measure emissions needs to be fairer. What supermarkets and public procurement demand needs to adapt. We need to have an honest conversation about imported food and what we can grow domestically, and when it is best to do so. We need to see efforts in soil restoration and organics.

Less nitrogen use and wastage. More agroforestry. More celebration of good example. And farmers should be helped to lock up carbon through land-use change and changing practices.

Farming is responsible for around 18% of Scotland’s emissions. Scotland and the UK cannot achieve their climate targets without the active engagement of the farming sector, due to the sequestration potential of Scotland’s land area. We all have a part to play. And we need to get it right because, more than most other sectors, farming has a critical role.

Done well, the industry sector could actually go beyond net zero and become carbon positive. And only if it does are we likely to reach our national climate targets.

We hope the Inquiry findings will help set out how this critical sector can thrive and develop, and help build the sustainable future we all want and need.

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Loosely in the soil like diamonds?

Pete Ritchie, organic farmer, Nourish Scotland, and member of Farming for 1.5°C Inquiry

Since we started ploughing, we’ve moved over 130 billion tonnes of soil carbon into the atmosphere as CO2. That’s a lot less than fossil fuels, but it’s still equivalent to about half the excess carbon now in the atmosphere compared to preindustrial levels.

So getting some of that CO2 out of the atmosphere and back into the soil as stable carbon is a no-brainer. Most of the policy focus so far has been on trees, and on some soils trees will increase carbon storage above and below ground, with early gains for some species and larger longterm gains with others.

However, on many of Scotland’s soils, trees lose more carbon below ground than they accumulate above ground, for years or decades.

So it’s important to look at soil carbon in farms as well as forests.

certainly scope globally to get millions of tonnes of carbon back into degraded rangeland soils.

So, since there’s already a global carbon market and plenty of firms wanting to offset their emissions, it seems a simple step to have farmers sell the extra carbon they lock up in their soil. Microsoft recently bought a slew of carbon credits in Australia, where there’s been a scheme in place for ten years, and the Biden administration has floated a plan to put billions into a carbon credit market to do likewise.

“It’s much, much easier to lose soil carbon than to accumulate it: 20 years of gain can be wiped out in a couple of seasons.”

Soil carbon comes in two forms: inorganic carbon locked up in minerals, and organic carbon. Organic carbon morphs between different forms: plant roots, micro-organisms, worms and spiders, leaf litter, dung, stable aggregates bound into the soil, and even biochar. Converting grassland or woodland into cropland, draining peaty soils, or allowing soil erosion can all release tons of soil carbon per hectare.

Some management practices can increase soil carbon over time, and this has wider benefits in terms of the soil’s resilience to droughts and flooding, and its capacity to hold nutrients. Fungi help plants extract nutrients from the soil and can protect them from pests.

Even in Scotland, where most farmed soils have relatively high carbon levels (partly because carbon cycles more slowly in our cold earth), it’s been estimated that we could lock up an extra 150-215 Mt (equivalent to four or five years of our total emissions) in our agricultural soils.

At farm level, increasing soil carbon can also be seen as offsetting other farm emissions, especially methane from grazing cattle. Plugging even a minor gain in soil carbon into a carbon calculator can move the needle into the black.

Some advocates of ‘carbon farming’ present cattle as part of the solution, producing ‘carbon positive’ beef; and there’s

Not so fast.

There are three main problems with cashing in on soil carbon.

First, making sure that what you buy is what you get – or, more formally, monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV). Carbon doesn’t just sit there in the soil waiting to be measured. It’s in constant flux with the atmosphere; the soil respiration cycle shifts many more tonnes of CO2 than all our fossil fuel emissions. Much of the carbon is held in the top 30cm, but it moves up and down, with significant amounts down to 100cm and beyond. It varies with seasons and can also vary greatly within a single field. So measuring change reliably means taking a large number of samples at a considerable depth and adjusting for any changes in soil density.

The EU’s recent technical note on carbon farming concludes that for grassland and arable farming, “Costs and uncertainty of MRV for SOC [soil organic carbon] undermine the costeffectiveness of large-scale result-based schemes.” In other words, we’re not there yet.

Second, forever is a long time. It’s much, much easier to lose soil carbon than to accumulate it: 20 years of gain can be wiped out in a couple of seasons. So schemes have to build in permanence – a commitment to keep the carbon in the ground for decades – which is not only a financial risk for current farmers but may make it harder to sell land with such long strings attached.

Third, you can only sell the family silver once. If the soil carbon is sold, increasing it no longer offsets other farm emissions: the claim to be ‘carbon neutral’ has been bought by the company or investment house which bought the credits and no longer belongs to the farm or its products.

But even if it’s early days for a soil carbon market, it’s vital that farmers keep the carbon they have and do what they can to lock up more. Cover crops, incorporating organic materials, using more diverse grass mixes, and agroforestry can all help.

The evidence is mixed on no-till, which in some cases moves the soil carbon nearer the surface but may not increase it overall. Minimising soil erosion is also essential; we’re still washing tonnes of carbon into the ditches.

By contrast, the Woodland Carbon Code is well established, and it makes more sense to pull private investment into well-managed tree planting, and use public investment and regulation to support farmers to maintain and increase farmland soil carbon. That’s a win-win for the farm and the planet, but it’s a long game – don’t expect results to show up in the inventory any time soon.

8 Summer 2021

UKCCC recommendations for agriculture Mike Robinson, RSGS Chief Executive, and Co-Chair of Farming for 1.5°C Inquiry

Towards the end of April, and ahead of US President Joe Biden’s virtual Leaders Summit on Climate, the UK Prime Minister committed the UK to increase its shorter-term climate change targets to a 78% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2035. The target set only last year was 68%.

This increased ambition reflects the UK’s determination to be seen as a world leader on this issue ahead of COP26 in Glasgow in November, and will undoubtedly improve our hand with the new President, who has made it clear that he is prioritising action on Covid and climate as two of the central tenets of his term of office. The UK Prime Minister’s move is the direct adoption of the UK Climate Change Committee’s advice of last year. The UKCCC is the Government’s scientific advisory body, tasked with challenging Government to acknowledge the latest science and recommend what targets to set and how to deliver against them. It remains one of the most crucial voices in UK climate change discussion and its advice is most likely to steer future political commitments across a whole array of sectors of industry and society.

There are a number of sectors where there is particular emphasis because of a lack of progress in reducing emissions – most notably transport and agriculture. The advice given is mostly for the UK as a whole, and the UKCCC acknowledges itself that it needs to refine this advice for Scotland, which has a different emissions trajectory and different opportunities within certain sectors.

Agriculture, for instance, is responsible for only about 10% of UK emissions, but is more important in Scotland, amounting to around 18%. So, whilst the recommendations need further thought to be truly applicable to Scottish agriculture, they are likely to steer UK agricultural policy for much of the next decade.

The UKCCC’s previous work (Land Use: Policies for a Net Zero UK (2020) and Net Zero: Technical Report (2019)) has shown that deep emissions reductions in the agriculture and land sectors cannot be achieved without changes in how we use our land. The contribution to emissions reduction from these sectors requires actions to change farming practices and consumer behaviour to release agricultural land for uses that reduce emissions and sequester carbon. The analysis assumes that land needed for food production, housing and other activity is met before climate mitigation objectives.

Low-carbon farming practices. Based on current understanding and knowledge, it is not possible to reduce agricultural non-CO2 emissions to zero due to the biological and chemical processes inherent in crop and livestock production. Emissions can be reduced through the take-up of farming practices and the adoption of technological options that improve nitrogen use efficiency, livestock diets and breeding, and the management of wastes and manures.

Livestock measures. Breeding measures aim to select animals with beneficial traits (eg, to improve health and fertility) which can also lower emissions intensity of production and increase profitability.

“Agriculture is responsible for only about 10% of UK emissions, but is more important in Scotland, amounting to around 18%.”

According to the recent UKCCC report, agricultural emissions were 54.6 MtCO2e in 2018 (using the Global Warming Potential of AR5 for methane). This represents 10% of UK greenhouse gas emissions in 2018 compared to 7% in 1990, reflecting both the slow rate of progress in reducing the sector’s emissions, and the faster pace of decarbonisation elsewhere in the economy.

Agricultural emissions are mainly from livestock and soils.

In 2018 around 63% of emissions were methane from livestock, 26% from nitrous oxide (N2O) mainly from soils, and 11% from direct carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the use of fossil fuels. In terms of actual on-farm activities and processes, the most significant cause of these emissions is from enteric fermentation from the digestion process of ruminant livestock, amounting to around 53% of agricultural emissions. Next in importance are agricultural soils (21%), wastes and manure management (16%), and mobile and stationary machinery (8%).

Emissions from farming have declined by 16% since 1990.

This is mainly due to successive reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy in the 1990s and early 2000s, which reduced livestock numbers, coupled with changes in farming practices due to EU environmental legislation to address nongreenhouse gas pollutants (eg, Nitrates Directives). However, there has been little change in emissions since 2008.

Increasing milking frequency from the common practice of twice to three times a day can reduce N2O emissions. More milking increases the nitrogen utilisation of the cow, which leads to a fall in nitrogen excretion. Milk yields are assumed to increase by 10%, which can partly offset the infrastructure costs (robotic milk parlours).

Livestock diets. This includes measures comprising animal feed and additives that can reduce enteric emissions in cattle and sheep, and improve the feed conversion ratio (FCR). Examples are feeding high-sugar grasses to reduce methane emissions, use of chemical inhibitors like 3NOP (3-nitrooxypropanol) to inhibit the production of methane in livestock rumen, and precision feeding.

Livestock health. Grazing livestock are particularly vulnerable to endemic disease. Improving health can reduce emissions intensity by improving the FCR and fertility, and reduce mortality, all of which can increase growth rates and milk yields.

Soil measures. Grass and legumes (eg, clover) help fix nitrogen into the soil, thereby reducing the need for synthetic nitrogen fertiliser (eg, by 200kg per hectare), which reduces N2O emissions. Current uptake is assumed to be 26%.

Waste and manure management. Proposals are for increased uptake of on-farm anaerobic digestion, fed with manure and co-digested with maize silage; also, covering slurry tanks with a retrofitted impermeable cover. Current uptake is 2.5% for both systems.

Low-carbon technology. There were around 40,000 sales of new agricultural equipment in 2019, covering a wide range of uses, including tractors, loaders, ploughs, utility vehicles and combines. These can be decarbonised through take-up of zero carbon technologies, with assumptions on decarbonisation technologies aligned to those in the industry

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and the off-road machinery sectors. The UKCCC assumes that electrification of smaller machinery and equipment starts around 2023, with larger electric machinery entering the market after 2025. Hydrogen options start to be taken up in the 2030s.

The UKCCC recommendations span every sector, including land-use change, and therefore there are overarching assumptions which include a reduction in livestock and crop lands. It calculates that the number of cattle, sheep, pigs and poultry needs to fall by between 6% and 24% by 2035, and that grassland area decreases by 12–32% and land for crops by 10–23% by 2035.

The assumption is that the land released from these measures is used productively for other uses.

“Improving [livestock] health can reduce emissions intensity.”

10 Summer 2021

Renewables and farming in Scotland: the view from a dairy farm in South West Scotland John Smith, dairy farmer, Chair of NFUS’s Milk Committee, and member of Farming for 1.5°C Inquiry The first cut of silage is now in the clamp. It was cut in late May with a high digestibility value and good protein level, which will give the cows’ winter diet a good start, so reducing the amount of concentrates required to achieve the desired yields of milk and animal growth.

energy project, in which along with wind they are looking to produce some green hydrogen.

A change this season is that we are applying slurry to the grass with our new umbilical dribble bar system, thanks to the Sustainable Agriculture Capital Grant Scheme. The dribble bar is a seven-metre-long pipe with lots of chutes that distribute the slurry at ground level. This example of Low Emission Slurry Spreading Equipment is an effective way to increase the amount of nutrient available to the grass and crop roots, while reducing the loss of ammonia and nitrous oxide (a powerful greenhouse gas) to the air or water.

This kind of equipment also reduces the smell traditionally associated with slurry spreading.

Hydroelectric schemes are around but are not that common in an agricultural context, as medium- to larger-scale projects need full planning permission and SEPA approval. Connection costs and distance from watercourse to point of consumption are critical to viability. Currently electricity suppliers charge around 15p/kWh, so if there is an opportunity to generate your own and you consume a lot, the numbers look very different from expecting the sale of generated power to pay for your investment, because the selling price could be nearer 6p per kWh.

On-farm renewables are of interest to all of us; the early adopters who caught the feed-in tariffs have certainly been the winners, and many projects are now simply not viable due to planning and grid connection costs outweighing the payment rates for relatively small installations.

Solar is possibly an exception to that, because the performance and the price of the PV panels have moved significantly in a positive direction. I visited a 7m x 100m array where sheep grazed happily in the area whilst the panels produced 250kWh. This project is part of a larger

“Sheep grazed happily in the area whilst the [solar] panels produced 250kWh.”

Rooftop solar is the norm in most solar projects, with the power generated being used domestically. Heating water using solar thermal is the most common application.

Geothermal on a small scale is quite difficult to justify but technology is evolving. Tapping into natural resources as part of the move away from fossil fuels will push innovation in the sector.

Anaerobic digestion (AD) has been employed on some larger farms where there has been sufficient feedstock, which can vary from cattle slurry to food waste to crops being grown specifically for the AD plant itself. This latter practice is being heavily criticised by many on its green credentials. The viability of an AD plant depends greatly on location of the waste feedstock and the ability to sell or utilise the outputs.

These include digestate, a good fertiliser (especially if applied using a dribble bar!) and biogas, which is a combination of methane and carbon dioxide. Biogas can either go for further processing to make into fuel such as hydrogen or be fed into gas facilities. Some innovative horticultural businesses are using the carbon dioxide in their greenhouses, resulting in more rapid plant growth. AD is capital-intensive and requires joined-up thinking with good partnerships; but if well thought out it can be very successful both environmentally and financially.

The Scottish Government’s favourite renewable energy, wind power, is now well established.

There are many experts in the field to advise what suits best in different sites. The equipment is better understood and generally more reliable, but the loss of feed-in tariffs has clearly been a blow to the sector. Despite this, projects are still going ahead. Even at farm scale, the towers are generally much larger installations with higher capital costs, but greater reliability and lower maintenance costs being given as the drivers for change.

According to the Scottish Energy Statistics Hub, Scottish farmers and land managers currently generate enough renewable electricity to power over 24,000 homes for one day. There is huge potential in our rural areas to generate even more clean renewable energy, particularly if our ambitious targets to get to net zero are to be helped along the way.

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Agroforestry: on the route to net zero Dr Andrew Barbour, hill farmer, Acting Chair of Deer Working Group, and member of Farming for 1.5°C Inquiry

Agroforestry – the growing of productive trees with agricultural crops or livestock on the same piece of ground – is often considered a key tool in the farming sector’s drive to reach net zero. Widely practised in many parts of the world, it is not, however, part of Scotland’s landscape.

Although an old idea, the climate emergency has given agroforestry a new relevance, thanks to the significant carbon sequestration potential it affords on agricultural land. The limited experience we have of it in Scotland shows that it can work. The challenge, however, is getting farmers on board.

Within the farming community, growing trees is often seen as being in direct competition with agriculture, and with a very long wait for a financial return. But the need to sequester carbon on-farm may change that view. So how to make it happen?

Everything should be right for such a change. Retailers such as Morrisons and Waitrose are starting to send strong signals that they want their production sources to be net zero.

Government have the same stated ambition, though have yet to really act. But Government hold some of the key levers to make mitigation options such as agroforestry happen.

Suitable grants and advice are clearly needed, but there is a more fundamental role for the State. It can create the right environment for such a change of view to take hold. For it is the role of Government to decide on the way that on-farm greenhouse gases are measured. And depending on how this is done, there is either a real pathway to net zero for our livestock sector, or it will seem a hopeless task which can never be achieved. And if it is the latter, why bother to change at all?

For the livestock sector, which is so important in Scotland, the key problem is methane. Using the standard equivalence metric which all Governments and the IPCC use, methane is, incorrectly, treated as a ‘stock’ gas which builds constantly in the atmosphere. In reality, methane is a short-lived ‘flow’ gas whose impact on warming depends largely on the rate of emissions – a behaviour that is much better captured by a new metric developed by Oxford University.

“The climate emergency has given agroforestry a new relevance.”

Unfortunately, this alternative metric seems unlikely to be adopted, as the IPCC appears worried that it will be used as an excuse for inaction; a concern that has arisen due to an interpretation of the metric which argues that ruminant methane emissions merely need to be stabilised. In reality, it’s clear that the ruminant sector will have to significantly reduce methane emissions if the world is to meet its 1.5°C targets. That does not, however, mean we should accept the continued use of the standard metric. Doing so would make it extremely hard for the livestock sector to ‘reach’ net zero, as even a significantly reduced rate of methane emissions would still be seen as contributing to an increase in warming.

The concept of a fair transition is important here, and there is a risk that livestock farmers will feel unjustly treated if this problem of presentation is not addressed. Methane emissions must come down by around 40% to meet the IPCC’s goals, and this is about the maximum that can be achieved through technical approaches. That will leave the other serious problems of carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide from fuels, manures and fertiliser to be dealt with through a mix of on-farm sequestration and technical solutions. And for many livestock farms, particularly in the uplands of Scotland, the agroforestry option could be a very practical means of reaching that all-important goal of net zero. But if the pathway is too difficult and if there is a perception of unjust treatment, farmers will continue to ignore the long-term solutions such as growing of trees: ‘why bother when we are doomed to fail’ will be the response.

So a key task for Government is either to use the more scientifically accurate metric for methane, or else to abandon equivalence metrics and use direct methane reduction targets. Only by doing this can many farms hope to reach net zero. If they are given an impossible task, options such as agroforestry will likely stay on the list of things we could have done, but never did.

12 Summer 2021

Agriculture and climate change Dr Sheila George, Food and Environment Policy Officer, WWF Scotland, and member of Farming for 1.5°C Inquiry

Understanding of the multifaceted role agriculture plays in climate change, as a contributor and as a potential solution, has grown significantly over the last few years. This has led to an increase in ambition to both address the challenges and harness the opportunities that responding to climate change will bring. But has policy caught up and do we have the clarity we need to deliver change?

There has been a 16% fall in agricultural emissions since 1990, attributed to a combination of efficiency improvements in farming, fewer cattle and sheep, a reduction in the amount of nitrogen fertiliser being applied, and a reduction in grassland being ploughed for arable production.

Some of these changes were side effects of combined factors and wider policy changes, rather than a result of targeted policy interventions to reduce emissions. For example, the Foot and Mouth outbreak in 2001 and the decoupling of farm payments in 2005 both contributed to a reduction in livestock numbers and their associated emissions.

However, since 2008, the reduction in agricultural emissions has slowed, almost plateauing since 2010.

“Scotland will require a route map outlining the specific actions required across all farming sectors to meet a 24% reduction in agricultural emissions.”

Lack of political ambition and action to align policy levers, such as incentives, advice and regulation, alongside over-reliance on voluntary uptake of mitigation measures, no doubt contributed to this lack of progress. This prompted the UK Committee on Climate Change to warn that Scotland was lagging behind the rest of the UK in developing post-CAP agricultural policy to drive climate action, highlighting “an urgent need to define a post-CAP framework for the 2020s that can significantly reduce emissions from agriculture and deliver transformational land-use change across Scotland.”

We have still to see the detail of that post-CAP policy for Scotland, but the passage of the Climate Change (Emissions Reductions) (Scotland) Act 2019, and the setting of the Scotland-wide target to meet net zero emissions by 2045, refocused minds on the role agriculture must play to get there. As a result, the updated Climate Change Plan (CCPu) contained a revised target to reduce direct agricultural emissions by 24% based on a 2020 baseline, and a suite of policies and proposals contributing to it.

We have also seen a flurry of activity in recent months to identify mitigation menus and a pathway for agriculture to reduce emissions, for example from Farming for 1.5°C and the farmer-led group reports, as well as the Just Transition Commission’s considerations of how to do so in a just and fair way. However, what is still missing is what all of this adds up to, and the specific mechanisms needed to secure delivery.

In fact, when asked by the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee to provide evidence of the contribution individual policy measures in the CCPu would make towards meeting the 24% emissions reduction for agriculture, Scottish Government replied that “it has not been feasible to conduct

emissions assessments of every policy and proposal given the uncertain context in which the plan was developed.”

Scotland can be at the forefront of climate-friendly, resilient and profitable agriculture, but it will require a route map outlining the specific actions required across all farming sectors to meet a 24% reduction in agricultural emissions, their relative contribution to those reductions, and a plan to secure uptake, underpinned by: • i mprovements in technical knowledge, tools and advice to support the implementation of policy recommendations; • t argeted engagement, formal education and professional development training at all levels for land managers, to secure behavioural change required to ensure uptake of measures; • r ealignment of financial support to underpin climate action, moving away from the current system of support, with its production-focused incentives and area-based payments, towards a model which supports delivery of public goods, including climate mitigation, and facilitates systems-level approaches to land use such as agroforestry and organic farming; •s trengthened regulatory baseline, ensuring it is fit for purpose in the context of meeting net zero by 2045.

Emissions from agriculture and LULUCF (Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry) in Scotland, 1990-2018. From Reducing emissions in Scotland: 2020 Progress Report to Parliament (Climate Change Committee, theccc.org.uk). Data source: National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory.

FURTHER READING

Securing a green recovery on a path to net zero: climate change plan 2018-2032, update (www.gov.scot/publications/ securing-green-recovery-path-net-zero-update-climate-changeplan-20182032) Agriculture and the environment: Farmer-led climate change groups (www.gov.scot/policies/agriculture-and-the-environment/ farmer-led-climate-change-groups) Just Transition Commission: A National Mission for a fairer, greener Scotland (www.gov.scot/publications/transitioncommission-national-mission-fairer-greener-scotland)

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Agents of change Professor Dave Reay, Chair in Carbon Management & Education, Executive Director of Edinburgh Climate Change Institute, University of Edinburgh, and member of Farming for 1.5°C Inquiry In this climate emergency the only certainty is change.

Massive change across our economy and society if we are to limit warming and deliver a sustainable transition to net zero and beyond or, if we fail, massive climate change and devastating impacts for this and all generations to come.

As a major source of emissions and as a sector right in the front line of climate change impacts, Scottish farming, and the trajectory of its transition over the coming decade, will help decide whether our whole nation succeeds or fails on climate change.

This transition for farming will inevitably require much greater emphasis on low emission food production, on enhanced protection of and carbon storage in soils and trees, and on ensuring climate resilience. The sheer urgency of the changes required carries some big risks. Risks of ‘carbon blinkers’ where emissions are indeed cut but where biodiversity and resilience suffer; risks that food production is undermined, only for food imports (and emissions overseas) to balloon; and risks that the nation-wide transition to net zero exacerbates existing inequalities in rural Scotland. To avoid all these pitfalls, we need both the knowledge that they are there and the capacity to navigate around them.

The myriad technological and management strategies that could help cut emissions from farming in Scotland are worthless if they cannot be used at scale. Regulation and conditionality on financial support aimed at delivering climate action is all well and good, but if farmers do not have the tools, advice and capacity to allow them to make the required changes then, at best, they will simply reward good practice by a select few. At worst they will destroy the very livelihoods and communities that will help deliver a sustainable transition to net zero in Scotland.

Tools These encompass access to and effective use of in-field technologies, like precision fertiliser application and soil testing right through to carbon budget calculators and remote sensing. Farm-level decision support tools also need to be further developed to support new practices at locally-relevant scales across Scotland. For everything from slurry storage and application, crop and livestock breeding, and feed additives, to soil and fertiliser amendments, and altered land management (like reduced tillage), there are potentially major strides to be made in reducing emissions from agriculture. But, in all cases, their true efficacy will depend on local context and capacity. The research and rural policy community must therefore continue to work closely with farmers from all areas and sectors to ensure the great potential of such on-farm mitigation strategies is actually realised.

Advice Farmers will need support to match practice with these emerging suites of options. They will need a clear voice in helping to ensure those options tied to financial support are actually achievable and appropriate for their circumstances; such as through the Regional Land Use Partnerships and

Frameworks. Many will also need advice on how best to meet the new reporting requirements that will inevitably come with a new ‘climate emergency-aligned’ rural support regime.

Advisors themselves will need significant new training and resources in order to support this. To help achieve this, new or enhanced advisory support will be required. Support that goes beyond the ‘one-to-many’ model and that allows every farm to develop and implement a dynamic farm-scale plan of action on climate change that ensures financial viability and long-term sustainability and, when aggregated to a national scale, delivers on our national targets.

Capacity More widely, capacity must be built that overtly acknowledges the role of agriculture in all land use in Scotland. More training and advice in fast-expanding aspects of Scottish farming, such as tree planting and agroforestry practices, will be required. Likewise, there is an urgent need for formal educational providers, such as Scottish further and higher education institutions, to align their provision with the fastchanging needs of the agriculture and land use sectors in the transition to net zero. Climate-related education and skills – from silviculture and soil carbon management, to adaptation planning and low carbon marketing – will need to be mainstreamed so as to ensure the next generation of farmers hit the ground running in terms of being able to take advantage of the new technologies, markets and financial incentives that will define the net zero transition for agriculture, not just in Scotland but all around the world.

“Scottish farming will help decide whether our whole nation succeeds or fails on climate change.”

14 Summer 2021

Scotland’s first-ever nationwide repeatable habitat maps Space Intelligence

Scotland’s Natural Capital Asset Index (NCAI) was created a decade ago to monitor the country’s natural capital and its ability to contribute to national wellbeing. But despite its apparent annual update timesteps, some of the data used to understand what, and where, habitats exist in Scotland is blurred in time and resolution – a patchwork of different datasets, with some classes based on historic landcover data from as far back as 1988. There was a clear requirement for more recent data that is easily updatable reflecting modern land uses.

gradients, needing us to integrate multiple types of satellite data in our advanced AI system to perform the classification.

Secondly, Scotland is one of the cloudiest countries in the world, meaning we had to go through tens of thousands of images to obtain multiple cloud-free views of each habitat patch, as well as bring in other satellite data types that can see through clouds.

And finally, applying our detailed mapping to a whole country involved scaling our cloud-based technology to deal with datasets in the billions rather than tens of millions of pixels. We are delighted to have successfully overcome these challenges, producing highly accurate maps.

“The project involved mapping 7.9 million hectares of satellite data at 20m resolution, twice.”

So we’re proud to have published Scotland’s first complete and repeatable habitat maps this April, developed in partnership with NatureScot, Scotland’s nature agency. This consistent and repeatable method will allow reliable measurements of habitat change in future. We produced these habitat maps at high resolution for mainland Scotland and all Isles, for 2019 and 2020. They are high resolution spatially (each map features nearly a billion pixels, each 0.04 hectares in size) and also in terms of classes, with the maps separating every patch of Scotland into one of 22 different classes. Our data will begin to be integrated into the NCAI for the 2019 and 2020 updates. Funded by the Scottish Government via Scottish Enterprise, these maps are open data, and have been showcased as an exemplar project in the newly-published artificial intelligence (AI) strategy for Scotland (www. scotlandaistrategy.com).

The project involved mapping 7.9 million hectares of satellite data at 20m resolution, twice, allocating each to one of 22 different classes (EUNIS Level 2). The maps had an overall accuracy of 91% when tested against independent data, a very good result given the mapped classes, many of which are hard to distinguish, even on the ground. An analysis of our errors revealed that almost all (>95%) pixels that are misclassified are placed in related classes, reducing the impact of these errors.

In developing the maps, we worked very closely with NatureScot and their habitat specialists to get a better understanding of Scotland’s habitat species and landcover types, and how they are different L-R: company founders Prof Ed Mitchard (CSO) depending on the region within and Dr Murray Collins (CEO). © Kirsty Laughlin Scotland. We collected 584,500 high-quality data samples across Scotland for the 22 types of landcover. We then used our advanced cloud-based AI platform to analyse tens of thousands of satellite images over Scotland, from a range of different types of sensors, in order to produce the maps. The workflow we have established means that updated versions of the map can be easily made in future, enabling future landcover changes to be mapped every year, or more frequently if needed.

Mapping Scotland’s landcover at this high resolution and to 22 different classes was a significant challenge for our team for a number of reasons. Firstly, Scotland’s habitats are diverse and often exist in small patches and along subtle

As well as the 2019 and 2020 maps, we have produced a change map showing how the landscape has changed over this 12-month period. This will enable Scotland’s government bodies, charities, and individuals to track how their landscape is changing.

Planning for net zero and biodiversity gain These maps are crucial for understanding the current state of the environment and how it has changed over time; but they also hold the key to enhancing land-use decision-making in future, and deciding where to restore habitats. Restoration will capture carbon and tackle the climate emergency, as well as improve and secure the provision of ecosystem services now and into the future, including the often intangible amenity value of our landscape.

With this in mind, we have developed a set of ‘heat maps’ in partnership with NatureScot which can help stakeholders to explore the best areas for habitat restoration based on a number of different factors which range from carbon storage through to affordability. This technology is still in development with our partners, and so the heat maps should be treated as preliminary.

Our system can help land owners and policy-makers address the climate emergency, since some types of vegetation, and ways of using the land, store more carbon and are more beneficial to biodiversity than others. That is, by planning to increase certain landcover types, we can lock away more carbon, enhance biodiversity, and provide a wide range of additional benefits in the form of ecosystem services.

However, until this project was funded, government agencies and land managers have lacked accurate, up-to-date information to be able to do this.

Innovative partnership and funding This mapping system, called SLAM-MAP, was developed thanks to funding from the Scottish Government through the CAN DO Innovation Challenge Fund managed by Scottish Enterprise, plus direct funding and support from NatureScot themselves. Through SLAM-MAP, we are deploying operational systems that help us address the twin environmental challenges of our age: the climate emergency, and the biodiversity crisis.

We look forward to taking our new experience and technological developments forward, working with our partners to establish Scotland as a global leader in the monitoring of Natural Capital, through the development of AI applied to big data from space.

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“Our system can help land owners and policy-makers address the climate emergency.”

Loch Rannoch in winter.

Detail of the map around Loch Rannoch, Scottish Highlands, showing the Black Wood of Rannoch to the south of the loch, forest to the north, and steep hills and moorland all around (© Space Intelligence Ltd). This is compared to a single season satellite image (© 2021 Microsoft; image courtesy of Ordnance Survey), showing that the detailed differences in classes and forest types are hard to see by eye, but picked up by Space Intelligence’s advanced AI, which looks at each habitat patch hundreds of times using different satellites throughout the year.

Two example heat maps showing competing factors that could be considered in prioritising habitat restoration: the opportunity for sequestering carbon, and the accessibility of the site. © Space Intelligence Ltd; terrain maps © 2021 Google

You can browse the maps at www.space-intelligence.com/scotland-landcover, and download the full dataset at www.shorturl.at/fBUX1.

16 Summer 2021

Soil: a nature-based solution Professor Colin Campbell, Chief Executive, James Hutton Institute

The excellent series of RSGS Climate Emergency Summits is focused on climate solutions, and our soil is certainly one of the most promising nature-based solutions available to us.

You may know how important soils are globally, and the threats to them from over-consumption and climate change. In Scotland we are more fortunate, but that doesn’t mean we can be complacent. Much of the focus on soils has been around how important they are as a store of carbon, and this is entirely true: the c3,000 Mt of carbon in Scottish soils is equivalent to 186 years of greenhouse gas emissions. There is a hierarchy of carbon stored in soils under different land covers, with the greatest amounts in peatlands, heath and moorland soils, followed by woodland, and then grassland and arable. For peatlands there is a plan of action and resources are starting to be made for restoration, even if many would say we need faster progress to match the urgency of the situation.

Similarly, for soils suitable for tree planting there are targets which will help sequester carbon and, if the right tree is planted in the right place, help restore biodiversity.

Inventories have shown organic matter levels have remained relatively constant from the 1980s. At the time of the last survey in 2007 we were deeply concerned they were declining, so this was seen as good news. However, historically we have traded down the land high in organic matter to land low in organic matter, eg in clearing woodland, creating arable from grassland. We have therefore already made major withdrawals from the long-term Natural Capital Bank that is our soil, and our nature is less abundant and our soils less resilient. Consequently, we are in danger of sitting on our laurels again if we are happy we are no longer reducing soil organic matter and everything is ok. It isn’t. Climate change alone will put severe pressures on our soil, and we need it to be much more resilient than it is. We need a plan that grows our soil capital before we can safely withdraw more products and services.

“Most farmers have an intuitive feel for what good soil is, and appreciate it is a living thing that needs nurture.”

The focus of the Climate Emergency Summit on soil was agriculture, and here there is still untapped potential to store much more carbon. However, the direct and indirect benefits of having more carbon as organic matter in our managed agricultural soils are much wider than just storing carbon.

This is because the organic matter in soil is the critical parameter affecting how soil functions in its many ways.

It fuels the megadiversity of life in the soil, improves soil structure, and so stores more water and improves infiltration; it helps supply nutrients, buffer and degrade contaminants, and reduce the likelihood of erosion by wind and rain, and reduces the transfer of pollutants to our waters and food chain, and makes our land more resilient to droughts and floods. It simply couldn’t be more important. But do we have a plan to increase the soil organic matter? Not explicitly.

We are fortunate also in having high-quality scientific evidence and knowledge of our soils. Our National Soil

Most farmers have an intuitive feel for what good soil is, and appreciate it is a living thing that needs nurture. Many are leading progressive change using agroecology and regenerative techniques. Consumers are also increasingly wanting to know we haven’t damaged nature or accelerated climate change, so there is a big commercial driver for the supply chain to move quickly in a more sustainable direction. We also have some progressive policies on land use and climate change; but is something missing in the round if things are not really changing? What we need, then, are ways to bring this together in a common vision of what will make our soils more vibrant with life-supporting nature; growing healthy food and useful materials without adding to the greenhouse gas emissions or diminishing the quality of our air and water. A National Soil Action Plan with targets for increasing our soil organic matter and growing our soils’ resilience could be one way forward. While there are international precedents arising from the Paris Climate Agreement in the quatre per mille (www.4p1000.org) initiative, there need to be local ways of achieving the same thing that account for local differences in soil resource.

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Summer 2021

Transforming agricultural land with maps: Lochrutton, Kirkcudbrightshire Chris Fleet FRSGS, Map Curator, National Library of Scotland This map is our earliest surviving detailed estate plan for the area to the west of Lochrutton in Kirkcudbrightshire, about five miles south-west of Dumfries. Along with many other rural areas in Scotland at this time, this area was the focus of ‘Agricultural Improvement’, with maps like this providing the basis for reorganised, more productive farming techniques. The map shows both the pre-Improvement landscape, with letters designating O (Outfield), P (Pasture), C (Croft), M (Meadow), and B (Bog) forming a scattered patchwork across the land, as well as the new larger, straighter, geometrical marches or dykes delimiting the farms. These changes went handin-hand with the wider consolidation of land holdings, with new crops, rotations, and techniques which saw previous waste or boggy ground brought into productive use, and an emerging infrastructure of roads and bridges helping to move agricultural goods and people. The map illustrates an economic and social transformation, as much as an agricultural one.

The land surveyor and draughtsman of this map, James Wells, worked actively in south-west Scotland from the 1750s to the 1790s, and we know he was resident in Dumfries in 1777. Lochrutton was owned by the Maxwell’s of Caerlaverock and Terregles, former earls of Nithsdale, and we know Wells had recently divided farms on their Barony of Caerlaverock lands in 1775-76. A crucial part of Wells’ work was to quantify agricultural land, dividing its potential into functional farming units. We see this in the detailed schedule on the left-hand side, with extents recorded in acres, roods and falls for all farms. An accompanying ‘Book of Plans’ also recorded these extents for the different kinds of agricultural land too. The acre (6,104 square yards, as a Scots acre) derives from the Anglo-Saxon word acer (meaning a field) corresponding to the size of a ploughed field, and this was divided into four roods (1,526 square yards), which itself was divided into 40 square falls (the fall being 38 square yards). This enclosure and quantification of land allowed an increase in rents, based around a clearly measured assessment of land value, with maps being primary instruments in this agricultural transformation.

“The map illustrates an economic and social transformation, as much as an agricultural one.”

James Wells, A Plan of the Barony of Lochrutton (1774-5). Image courtesy of the National Library of Scotland. View online at maps.nls.uk/view/106697333.

18 Summer 2021

The Jevons paradox Mike Robinson, RSGS Chief Executive

In economics, the Jevons paradox occurs when technological progress or government policy increases the efficiency with which a resource is used (reducing the amount necessary for any one use) but the rate of consumption of that resource rises due to increasing demand.

of these things simply to produce more of everything, and there is no cap, then our overall emissions will increase too, and we will have failed. It is essential, therefore, that the sector takes any and all efficiencies it can find, but within the context of a reduction in emissions too.

And these reduction targets need to apply to all greenhouse gases. There is no point, after all, in reducing methane if we simply increase carbon dioxide. We need to reduce them all.

“It is essential that the sector takes any and all efficiencies it can find, but within the context of a reduction in emissions too.”

This is a real concern for climate change because making each unit of production more efficient will not lead to a reduction in overall emissions if you simply produce more. It is not sufficient in and of itself. For example, cars have generally become more efficient. According to the RAC, since 1997 there has been a 45% increase in the average mpg figure for petrol vehicles and a 38% increase in the average mpg figure for diesel vehicles. Meanwhile, road traffic in Great Britain increased from 255 billion miles travelled in 1990 to 328 billion miles in 2018, an increase of 29%. Efficiencies over this period do mean that greenhouse gas emissions from road transport have only increased by 6%, but they have still increased when they need to be dramatically reducing, so efficiency alone is clearly not enough.

Making anything more efficient is good business practice, but it has to be done in the context of an overall framework to reduce emissions. The USA’s approach to overall emissions reductions on climate change, for example, was very much focused on resource efficiency, particularly after the publication of Natural Capitalism by Hawken, Lovins and Lovins. This book became a go-to text for policy makers during the early 2000s, and focused almost exclusively on increasing unit efficiency, but not on any overall emissions cap. It was popular because it is politically far more palatable to argue for efficiencies within existing production than for a change or cut in that production. As a consequence of this approach, US commitment was largely perceived as halfhearted at best, and CO2 emissions from energy consumption continued to grow during this decade until the peak in 2007.

To achieve real emissions reductions, they need to increase unit efficiency and also reduce overall emissions.

This is also true for agriculture. There is a very real need for farmers to employ practices which can reduce emissions per unit of product and bolster efficiency, so that their businesses are more effective and their input use is reduced… but as with all sectors this has to be alongside reducing overall emissions. It is possible to produce crops with less emissions. It is possible to manage land and animal wastes with less nitrogen losses than at present. It is possible to breed and fatten cattle and sheep to produce less methane. It is possible to run an increasing proportion of farm machinery without fossil fuels. And it is possible to restore soil, grow more trees, and lock up carbon in the soil. But if we do all

However, the real world is of course more complicated still. It is not good for the Scottish economy or the environment if we implement all this good, but cut domestic production and simply replace it by importing less carbon-efficient products from abroad. Our emissions targets are currently too focused on our ‘production’ emissions and not on our ‘consumption’ emissions. As the table shows, we rely heavily on imports in almost every food sector.

The Jevons paradox is a concern to agriculture, and it is a concern to all of us in tackling climate change. We cannot afford to cut methane emissions if we simply replace them with carbon dioxide. We cannot rely on efficiencies alone if we simply produce more. But we also cannot afford to implement this on domestic production if we don’t enforce it on imported production too. The danger with the Jevons paradox is that we often work in silos, research specialisms and organisations, which do not inherently recognise the value or need for this type of joined-up thinking. As ever, what is required to solve such a wicked problem is a holistic and consistent approach which takes account of all of these parameters and nurtures cross-sectoral, cross-disciplinary strategic delivery.

Fruit and veg Meat Beverages Cereals Dairy & eggs Fish Miscellaneous Coffee, tea, cocoa, etc Animal feed Oils Sugar

exports £billion

imports £billion

1.3 2.1 7.9 2.4 2.0 2.0 2.2 1.5 1.1 0.6 0.4

11.5 6.6 6.0 4.2 3.3 3.5 3.4 3.8 2.4 1.9 1.2

Table of UK trade in different food groups in 2019, from Food statistics in your pocket (DEFRA, November 2020).

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The capacity of floodplains to mitigate climate change Professor David Gowing, School of Environment, Earth & Ecosystem Sciences, The Open University

A consortium of organisations led by the Open University has received funding to investigate the potential of land in our floodplain to help in the effort to draw carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere in order to mitigate the effects of climate change. The OU has been joined by the Long Mead Thames Valley Wildflower Meadow Restoration Project and the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust in this important ground-breaking work.

Because the meadows had been so widespread, they were not considered rare or threatened. So, with no economic or cultural value placed on them, they simply disappeared under alternative land uses, such as urbanisation, arable farming, mineral extraction or abandonment to scrub. It is estimated that 97% of species rich grassland was lost in the 50 years 1930-80. The percentage loss of floodplain meadows may have been even greater.

“Floodplains may hold several hundred tonnes of carbon per hectare if the full soil profile is considered.”

The group will sample a range of land uses in the Thames Valley to plot the response in soil carbon to an area being converted from arable use back to meadow. Restoration schemes of various ages from one year to 36 years will be sampled, alongside unrestored arable fields as controls and ancient meadows as reference systems. The resultant data set should not only reveal the capacity of this land use to store carbon, but also give an indication of the dynamics of the sequestration process.

Why floodplains are important

The particular focus of the project is the restoration of floodplain meadows. These meadows are spectacularly diverse ecosystems with up to 40 plant species per square metre. They were originally valued for their hay crop, which was the mainstay of agriculture in medieval English villages.

Indeed, in the Domesday Book, floodplain meadows were the most highly valued land type recorded.

The economic value of this grassland was much reduced in the early part of the 20th century when artificial fertilisers started to become more generally available. The particular value of a floodplain is linked to the annual deposition of sediment that renews the nutrient content of the soil and thereby sustains a good annual crop of hay. Outside a floodplain, hay crops would deplete the soil nutrients after a few years and crops would dwindle as the land became exhausted. Hence the value of floodplain meadows, which produced good crops each year in perpetuity. The maps from around 1850 show that meadow was once the dominant land use in lowland floodplains. However, once artificial fertiliser was available, farmers could suddenly start to produce hay or silage away from the floodplain, and land use began to change.

Having lost its economic importance, its intrinsic value to nature conservation, being one of the most diverse vegetation types in Britain, was not immediately recognised.

Not until the 1970s was their importance for nature conservation first realised. They were then rapidly designated for their biodiversity, and almost all remaining stands now have the highest national or international conservation status. These meadows have more recently been appreciated for their ability to store floodwaters, thereby mitigating flood risk downstream. They also perform a valuable service in trapping sediments from floods and in improving water quality by acting as filters. A more critical benefit – the ability to sequester and store carbon – has only recently been appreciated.

Carbon sequestration Measurements of soil carbon from some of the remaining fragments of this grassland type showed the top 10cm to contain 109 tonnes of carbon per hectare. Almost twice as much as grassland elsewhere in the catchment and substantially more than most woodland soils. Recent research has shown how important plant diversity is to the storage of soil carbon and how good soil structure enhances the capacity for storage. Floodplain meadows being so diverse and having such well-structured soils therefore present themselves as an ideal vehicle for carbon storage.

Further research in the US on alluvial soils shows that the entrained carbon can extend for several metres in depth because of the unique way alluvial soils are deposited.

Measurements in Colorado suggest floodplains may hold several hundred tonnes of carbon per hectare if the full soil profile is considered.

If floodplain meadows live up to expectations, it is hoped that the demonstration sites in the Thames Valley, which will include some novel restoration and diversification schemes, will provide inspiration and a template for wider adoption of meadow restoration. The long-term goal would be to restore 70,000ha of floodplain meadow throughout the UK to enhance the country’s biodiversity, flood-risk management, water quality and carbon sequestration.

David Gowing is Professor of Botany at The Open University and Director of the Floodplain Meadows Partnership. He specialises in the response of terrestrial vegetation to soil hydrology, and he advises the National Trust, The Wildlife Trusts and The Parks Trust on nature conservation issues, particularly in floodplains.

20 Summer 2021

Blown away by Tiree Mike Robinson, RSGS Chief Executive

Tiree is a quirky place. It is tranquil and remote, yet despite the nearly four-hour ferry journey from Oban, this island, the westernmost of the Inner Hebrides, doesn’t feel as remote as it really is. It has huge open skies and long beaches lapped with turquoise waters. Inland it is mostly peaty bog, with buildings dotted in clusters across the landscape. The buildings are an odd mix too – spotty stone houses, cement ruins, pretty and rustic old-style blackhouses, the odd new wooden café or holiday home, and the remnants of decaying old concrete houses still clinging to black-and-white modernstyled cottages.

Away from the beaches, it mostly has the aura of a sheep and cattle farm. Or a golf course. And every hill has some structure on it, functional rather than attractive. Old grey WWII lookout posts, mobile masts and, on the biggest hill of all, a giant golf ball radar station.

The weather is best described as changeable. Columns of dark rain-streaked clouds scud along the horizon, nudged along by shafts of penetrating sunshine which sparkles and dances across the near ocean. White fluffy clouds bang together, then burst apart, replaced with blue pastel skies.

The air is constantly changing. Being so low-lying and on the edge of the Atlantic, any weather which does blow in, and it can be quite extreme, is unlikely to hang around much more than half an hour, before it careers on towards Mull, mainland, or the open sea. The only constant is the wind. One minute it rocks the machair grass with a gentle air. The next it is threatening to steal your washing as sheets and wetsuits flap horizontally, clinging for dear life to the washing line, in a ferocious cold northerly blast.

Being such a low-lying island, its best views are across its fabulous and varied beaches (Gott, Hynish, Balevulin, Balephetrish), or out to sea to the many islands visible from the coast. Mingulay and Berneray up to Vatersay and Barra to the north-west. Skye to the north. Rhum, Eigg and Muck to the north-east. Mull and Treshnish to the east. And the Paps of Jura and Rhinns of Islay further south. And look carefully to the south-west where the impressive and statuesque Skerryvore lighthouse stands like a sentinel on the horizon, warding off unsuspecting ships from the rocks.

Tiree has made the most of its sunlight hours, its wind and waves and open beaches, and is recognised as one of the best surfing spots in Scotland and beyond. The ferry, the camping sites, and the informal grass parking spots are awash with VW campervans, roof racks with piles of surfboards, and outdoor families excited by the wind and waves.

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Summer 2021

“Its best views are across its fabulous and varied beaches.”

Tiree economically needs tourism. But not everyone welcomes tourists, especially now they each potentially harbour the coronavirus, which the island has until now managed to avoid. It has divided the island in a way islands seem more susceptible to. They represent a microcosm of wider society, but at the less comfortable extremes, where scars seem more surface-deep and visible. Nobody wants to get Covid of course, because it is dangerous and can impact lives for months. But nobody wants to be the one blamed locally for bringing Covid to the island either. That could impact lives for a generation. Like anywhere we visit, we need to respect this.

Tiree feels distinct. It is very removed from the mainland and very different from the other islands. It is a magical place to visit, and those people who do visit are caught in its spell, coming back year after year, seeking that tranquillity, the quiet beaches, those wide panoramas, and those big open skies.

22 Summer 2021

Be a nitrogen hero Robert Fleming, cattle farmer, Simplification Taskforce for Scottish Government for CAP Reform, and member of Farming for 1.5°C Inquiry There is an exciting future ahead when we consider food consumption and production! Not since the post-Second World War era has there been such a demand from society and Government for a cultural shift in food and farming.

These external pressures may seem to be far from your front door, but the ‘exciting’ part in this tale of climate-friendly action is the role every one of us has to play in its success.

The narrative is simple: how we all live our lives is having some negative effects on our planet, and action is required.

Climate change is a real and present threat to humanity, and the scientists have laid out the dangers that our changing climate would have on our future: increased temperatures melting polar ice, and more extremes of temperature highs and lows affecting our day-to-day lives (a few degrees warmer in the summer may initially appeal, but the impacts would be far-reaching). Drought is becoming a global issue impacting food production and water availability. Higher rainfall events risk more flooding and threaten homes and businesses, potentially impacting our road networks and the safe passage of people and vital supplies. There’s a touch of the ‘Hollywood blockbuster’ in this future prediction, but the good news is that we can all be the hero in this tale of humanity fighting against an invisible threat.

We live in a world of ‘must have’, and where ‘next day’ is just about fast enough to pacify our desires, yet to have a positive impact and lead a change in society we all must pull together and consider the outcomes associated with these demands. Let’s start by sitting at our kitchen tables; it’s as good a place as any to look at how we live our lives and, more importantly, our food choices. We all know a healthy diet is a key part of life and, no matter your personal choices within your balanced diet, a few key principles of food production demanded on every purchase you make will drive change. This change can be far-reaching and drive true change into the way our food is produced. Imagine us all as the end consumers being the hero in our Hollywood blockbuster by asking more from the primary food producers, processors, retailers and legislators!

So where do we start? Consider the food items in your shopping basket and ask yourself if the rhythms of nature are being followed in your menu planning? We all strive to produce tasty, home-cooked meals, and when doing so it’s obvious that Mother Nature really does know best – there is a reason why naturally grown crops and livestock are nutritionally superior to ‘out of season’ fruit and veg for example. To protect the soils in which our food (or the food of our food, in the case of ruminant livestock such as cows, sheep and deer) is grown, the farmer must factor in balancing inputs, yield and market price, as well as nurturing a healthy soil.

“A few key principles of food production demanded on every purchase you make will drive change.”

Nitrogen fertiliser is often used to increase growth and therefore yield, helping dilute the cost of production for a given land area.

But, if the consumer desired more seasonal produce, grown with less synthetic inputs, we could reduce the intensity of production, embracing a more holistic food production cycle. It’s well proven that poorly targeted nitrogen fertiliser can lead to nitrogen loss to the atmosphere. This is not only a huge financial waste but has a negative side effect to the climate.

Considering the fact that roughly 22% of food purchases are wasted in the home, if we paid a little more for our food shop and this revenue was returned to the primary producer, we, as consumers, could demand a reduction in nitrogen use.

Seasonal produce, produced with less artificial inputs, with less waste at all steps in the supply chain, will drive efficiency and therefore that much-needed reduction in nitrogen losses to the environment.

Be the hero in this tale, take this one small step, lead change and demand more from every link in the chain, as you are the final link as the end purchaser and consumer.

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Summer 2021

The future of food and farming?

Dr Deborah Long, Chief Officer, Scottish Environment Link, and member of Farming for 1.5°C Inquiry

Land use and land ownership is a live issue in Scotland.

Debate around who owns Scotland and what they do with that land has never gone away. How land is managed is coming into sharper focus now in the face of climate and nature emergencies. Land management is fundamental to how Scotland can meet our climate targets plus reduce the ongoing loss of biodiversity and improve the wellbeing of Scotland’s people.

“Farmers, land managers and food producers need to know where Scotland’s future rural policy is heading.”

Who benefits from land use is also key.

We all benefit from land use; those who work the land, who live on it and in communities supported by it, those who visit and those who depend on the services it provides, like clean water, healthy food, flood control, health and wellbeing through contact with nature.

Taken together, this all points in a direction of a much wider set of goals for the farming sector than those relating purely to food production, and carries a clear implication that a much wider range of interests and voices should be involved in shaping its future.

There is distinct acknowledgement at the highest levels of Government that the climate and environment emergencies require a radical change in approach to the way we manage and use our land, to address the challenges we face. “The challenges facing biodiversity are as important as the challenge of climate change, and I want Scotland to be leading the way in our response,” said Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s First Minister, in July 2019.

In early 2019, the Scottish Parliament debated future rural policy in light of the UK voting to leave the EU. As a result, the Farming and Food Production Future Policy Group was established by the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Economy, to develop and make recommendations for policy from 2024 onwards. This group, launched in June 2019, has so far not been able to publish its findings.

While the Future Policy Group has been unable to publish its report to date (April 2021), farmer-led groups have also been tasked with identifying ways forward for each farming sector in response to climate change. They have all published reports.

The gap that remains is the original remit of the Future Policy Group, to map out the current context and the future direction of policy travel needed. Without this strategic overview, the sector-led plans will need to come together to identify and fill gaps and eliminate overlaps. Farms in Scotland need clear pathways towards farm profitability in a net zero and nature positive future.

To this end there are a number of principles that would guide the direction of travel for Scotland, would cover cross-sectoral concerns, and would provide the context for sector-led actions. These include the following.

1 Ambitious, coherent, clear and measurable objectives: able to contribute to meeting Scotland’s net zero obligations and biodiversity targets, meet local food needs, and reflect

the need to sustain and enhance natural resources and the services our land provides.

2 Payments and interventions: must deliver clear outcomes that meet policy objectives for society, economy and the environment.

3 Effective ambition: food, farming and other Scottish Government policy goals must be aligned. These include meeting local food needs and increasing the availability and accessibility of healthy sustainable food.

4 Investment in research, knowledge transfer and innovation: to support and facilitate the rapid transition to a sustainable rural economy, with pilot projects and demonstrations, and a fit-for-purpose advisory service enabling all to benefit.

5 Protection, restoration and investment in biodiversity and natural capital: to ensure future generations have access to fully functioning ecosystems and services, including healthy soil, clean water and air, species diversity from genes to pollinators. Agroecological principles are key.

6 Fair and proportionate policy creation: the costs of implementation and regulation must be shared fairly and be proportionate to environmental, societal and economic benefits.

7 Wide collaboration and buy-in: must be central to future land use decisions. National ambitions, priorities and targets should match with local realities, knowledge and aspirations.

8 Just Transition principles must be central: transformation has far-reaching implications for people across Scotland.

With the biodiversity COP15 in October and the climate change COP26 in November, and the need to act within this Decade of Ecosystem Restoration to achieve change, Scotland must act now. We need to be ambitious, given the opportunity we have to learn lessons and step outside the constraints of the Common Agricultural Policy. We need to offer a clear direction of travel. Farmers, land managers and food producers need to know where Scotland’s future rural policy is heading, in order to prepare for the future and target their investment and activity effectively and efficiently.

24 Summer 2021

A whole-farm holistic approach Andrew Moir, Chair, Scottish Government Arable Climate Change Group

In November 2020 the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Economy and Tourism, Fergus Ewing MSP, invited me to form a farmer-led group – Arable Climate Change Group (ACCG) – to recommend practical but, importantly, evidence-based measures that the arable and horticulture sector can implement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and demonstrate how this sector can help achieve the Scottish Government’s statutory climate change targets.

of emissions relate to N2O derived from fertiliser and soil management, with the remainder being CO2 largely from farm vehicles.

While efficiency of production and yields have increased, and examples of best practice exist, we have not had a coordinated strategy that effectively balances the need for climate change mitigation and biodiversity enhancement with efficient food production. We believe this farmerled process represents a significant opportunity. Scotland’s arable sector is progressive and capable, with widespread membership of quality assurance schemes and an abundance of skilled people, contributing to many world-renowned food and drink products. The sector is not just crucial to Scotland’s national brand – it is crucial to our national prosperity and presents a significant economic and environmental opportunity.

“We have not had a coordinated strategy that effectively balances the need for climate change mitigation and biodiversity enhancement with efficient food production.”

This is a fabulous opportunity for Scottish agriculture to show real leadership and ambition in what are unprecedented times of change, forming ideas and solutions compatible with nature but still being productionoriented to match Scotland Food & Drink’s ambitions.

Early in the process it was realised that measures implemented in isolation would not take us forward; a whole-farm holistic approach was required. I am determined that our concise readable report can and will be used by Government and the wider industry as a template, not only to meet greenhouse gas reduction targets but also to allow Scottish farmers to be both sustainable and profitable, working with scientifically proven methods and good common sense. There is no silver bullet, but many approaches and methodologies that all farmers and growers can draw down on to suit their own unique circumstances to reach individual and national outcomes.

In this context the aim is to firmly position the role that Scotland’s arable sector can play in contributing to longterm climate change mitigation, biodiversity enhancement, thriving rural communities, and an ambitious food and drink industry. There is also recognition of the deeply interconnected relationships that exist between all sectors of Scottish agriculture, reflected in the holistic nature of our recommendations.

The arable sector includes cereals, other crops, horticulture and vegetables (including for human consumption, stock feed, energy, industrial use and seeds). In 2019, the combined output of arable produce in Scotland accounted for a third of agricultural output, with a value of £1.1 billion.

Around 580,000 hectares were used to grow cereals, crops, fruit and vegetables, accounting for around 10% of Scotland’s total agricultural area. This is equivalent to 12% of the total arable land in the UK. Barley and wheat are the main cereal crops grown in Scotland, accounting for around 85% of the area of cropland, and much of it goes into whisky production.

Indeed, 87% of barley and 50% of wheat requirements of Scotland’s whisky production are sourced in Scotland, with around 20-30% used in ruminant, pig and poultry diets.

Emissions from the arable sector account for around 1.6 MtCO2e, or 21% of total agricultural emissions. Around 60%

To achieve this vision will require radical change and a coordinated approach to policy-making and action, supported by the work of each of the farmer-led groups, incentivising together economic and environmental sustainability. The close and enduring relationship between Scottish Government policy and agriculture is fundamental to success, and it is clear that future policy must act as an enabler, empowering industry to identify and act upon their own priorities, in relation to both climate resilience and sustainable food production.

The route map to change must be clear, recognising the multiple audiences with which agriculture interacts. Based on this approach, the future policy must be driven by an outcomes-focused approach, clearly demonstrating how financial support benefits the ambition. The ACCG have outlined a strategic industry direction and believe this should be aligned to activity at individual farm level. The report recommendations include the introduction of the Climate Smart Farm Plan, supported by the principles of Integrated Farm Management, a whole-farm business approach to sustainable farming.

The success of any future support scheme and strategy will be determined by its ability to galvanise industry to deliver, in relation to both climate change mitigation and economic sustainability. We must therefore be clear about potential challenges and suggest ways in which they can be overcome.

The early engagement of industry in adopting a new approach and its potential benefits must be coherent and relatable.

It is important to recognise that terms like ‘Climate Smart Agriculture’ and ‘Integrated Farm Management’ are not widely understood, and significant resource will be required to build awareness of related concepts, aims and benefits.

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Summer 2021

Scottish dairy: the cream of the crop?

Jackie McCreery, Chair, Scottish Government Dairy Sector Climate Change Group

I was asked to chair a farmer-led group looking at how support for Scottish dairy farming could evolve post-Brexit in the context of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. I am not a climate change expert, so I took on this task with a level of ignorance about what was involved. I, like most people, appreciate that climate change is happening and that all parts of society need to change behaviours in order to slow down this change for the sake of future generations and the planet.

However, it was not until I started to look at the issue in more detail that I started to understand the complexity of solving it.

What is clear is that the climate change challenge runs alongside many other, potentially competing, national and international priorities. If you develop policy solely targeted at reducing GHG emissions, then you may fail to address other equally important priorities. I have a degree of sympathy for any government in getting this right – but time is not on our side and we don’t have the luxury of a ‘doover’ when it comes to climate change. Equally, agriculture can only survive if we maintain a critical mass of activity, infrastructure, livestock, and people. Once it’s gone, it’s gone and very difficult to resurrect.

Prior to chairing the Dairy Sector Climate Change Group, I took for granted that the current target-based approach was the correct one, and that a framework was the best one to work within. Having looked at the issue in a little more depth in the context of farming and food production, I am now not so sure. Accurate assessment of emissions from agriculture is more challenging than for other sectors because of the need to quantify multiple interrelated biological production processes.

As we are trying to tackle a global problem by imposing domestic, legally binding targets, one of the possible solutions would be to simply wipe out our methane emissions by drastically reducing cattle numbers in Scotland. While this may (if one is sitting comfortably in one’s silo) appear a plausible suggestion, the truth is that the problem is much more complex than that and, while it is sensible to consider all possible options, it is really a suggestion which can be dismissed relatively quickly. Our response really ought to be to present the balanced and reasonable, evidence-based view, with tackling climate change at its heart.

There is much farmers can do to reduce their GHG emissions, and they should be adopting all available technologies to do so, with government help where farm profitability doesn’t allow it. This may well achieve a reduction in cattle numbers through increased efficiency and improved management practices. There is also scope for retirement of a percentage of the herd and for the animals we keep to be as productive as possible.

“Time is not on our side and we don’t have the luxury of a ‘doover’ when it comes to climate change.”

As a source of protein, milk has the lowest GHG intensity (kg of CO2e per kg of protein) of all meat, meat products and fish products. Scotland has some of the best milk fields in the world, driven by an ideal climate, good farming practice, investment in on-farm technology adoption, and innovation, producing 1.5bn litres of milk in 2019-20. Average Scottish dairy herds are the largest in the UK and have the highest average yields. As well as milk, dairy herds also produce over a quarter of Scotland’s beef, through beef-cross calves and cull cows, with half the global warming potential of beef from the beef herd.

Policymakers need to be looking beyond our little piece of the globe. If we import our meat and dairy (or soya) it may well be produced less sustainably, with greater negative impact on the environment and lower animal welfare standards. But because the emissions in producing it don’t currently ‘count’ for our targets, this would help our domestic emissions target. The problem is that this takes no account of the fact that our agricultural industry would shrivel on the vine, and all the associated economic and social infrastructure would disappear.

We have some of the best academic minds looking at climate change in Scotland. We also have some of the most progressive and forward-thinking farmers and a core of committed and publicly minded civil servants. Let’s get them to work together to develop a policy which can achieve the optimum position in meeting multiple objectives for the benefit of society and the planet.

The starting point is to ascertain the baseline carbon footprint of Scottish agriculture by getting all farms in Scotland carbon-audited. This should be part of a wider Whole Farm Climate Review for each enterprise, which would help formulate a plan of action tailored to each farm and identify funding and knowledge gaps. We believe that it will only be through industry and government working together that we will achieve an agricultural policy which will meet multiple objectives, deliver value for public money, and generate buy-in from farmers and society.

26 Summer 2021

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the Scottish pig sector Kevin Gilbert, Scottish Pig Industry Leadership Group The Global Warming Potential of Scottish pig farms has gone down by almost 40% over the last 20 years. This remarkable progress has been achieved as a by-product of farm and industry efforts to improve efficiency and reduce costs of production. Pigmeat is one of the favourite sources of protein for Scottish consumers, combining affordable and tasty products with a low carbon footprint relative to the alternatives.

decades, pig farmers have made a conscious effort to drive improvements in feed utilisation performance and growth rates. What is most remarkable is that the UK pig industry has reduced its Global Warming Potential by 37% in the indoor sector and 35% outdoors. These reductions were attributed to three main factors: • changes in animal performance, which enabled a decreased energy concentration in feed; • inclusion of alternative, home-grown ingredients where possible; • increased slaughter weight without a corresponding increase in inputs.

“Scottish pig farmers have demonstrated that they can adapt their business and behaviours to deliver both economical and sustainable outcomes.”

Pig farmers in Scotland have been on a challenging journey, partly because the sector has not benefitted from direct agricultural support through the Common Agricultural Policy. They have been compelled to be more efficient, productive, and resilient in the face of many challenges, and forced to make tough decisions for their farms based on evolving science, best practice, and consolidation in the processing plant network. The current challenges of Covid-19, abattoir closures and the African swine flu prevalence globally are business shocks which our pig farmers are currently having to contend with.

The Scottish Government has laid out urgent and ambitious targets to reduce emissions by 75% by 2030. The pig sector has the rudiments of data recording and best practice knowledge sharing in place to build on the progress already made in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

In common with all farming operations, pig production in Scotland has an impact upon the environment as it converts a range of inputs into nutritious protein. Emissions associated with feed production are the major contributor. The inclusion of soybean meal is the most significant feed contributor. It is imported, mainly from South America, and so has a high Global Warming Potential associated with its production and transport.

Digestive methane emissions are negligible, but emissions of both methane and nitrous oxide from manures are more notable.

However, over the last two

Scottish farmers have increased pig growth rates through genetics and careful management, whilst reducing the amount of feed required to achieve that growth. These improvements result in more meat being produced from each tonne of feed that is eaten (c285kg/tonne in 2019 vs c255kg/tonne in 2011) resulting in a far lower CO2 output per kg of meat.

Scottish pig farmers have demonstrated that they can adapt their business and behaviours to deliver both economical and sustainable outcomes. In pursuit of further reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, our pig farmers need to make strategic investments in cost-effective environmental mitigation. If the Scottish Government provides appropriate economic and policy support, pork production can lead our food supply chain towards net zero emissions in Scottish agriculture.

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Livestock breeding and greenhouse gas emissions Professor Geoff Simm, Global Academy of Agriculture & Food Security, University of Edinburgh, and member of Farming for 1.5°C Inquiry Selection between farmed livestock breeds, crossing breeds or strains, and selection within breeds are three well-established means of altering livestock performance (yields of milk, eggs, meat, fibre, feed use, reproductive performance, and increasingly resistance to disease, etc).

Some molecular genetic technologies are already augmenting these approaches in industry breeding programmes (eg, using DNA-based tests to help identify animals with favourable genes for traits of interest) and others are under development that may do so in future (eg, gene editing, currently an experimental approach in farmed animals).

Selection between breeds or crosses produces one-off changes in performance; selection within breeds can produce ongoing, often smaller but cumulative, annual changes in performance. Together these approaches, alongside developments in nutrition, management and health, have produced dramatic changes in livestock performance over the last few decades. For example, dairy cow yields in the UK have increased by around three-fold in the last 60 years, with much of the change in recent decades coming from selection within the predominant Holstein breed. Even more dramatic genetic changes have been recorded in pigs and poultry. Most UK pig, poultry and dairy producers access elite breeding stock from leading multinational breeding companies (via artificial insemination (AI) bulls, in the case of dairy). By contrast, there has been much lower uptake of science-based breeding methods in the beef and sheep sectors here, with a few notable exceptions.

Stimulating much greater use of these existing approaches is a key early opportunity to reduce the environmental footprint of these sectors.

systems is to produce high-quality products but with less methane.

Additionally, there is growing interest in further developing breeding programmes to directly target methane emissions.

There are differences between families in methane emissions in cattle and sheep. Hence, there is a great deal of effort globally to identify cost-effective, practical techniques for estimating individual animal methane emissions for use in breeding programmes, including notable contributions from SRUC, The Roslin Institute, University of Edinburgh, and The Rowett Institute, University of Aberdeen. The techniques being investigated include body-worn or feed station-mounted breath sampling, mid-infrared analysis of milk, and genetic analysis of rumen microbes, as well as the use of proxies such as feed intake.

“A key future objective for ruminant systems is to produce high-quality products but with less methane.”

With a long history of research on design of breeding programmes and selection tools in most farmed species, networks of research farms, comprehensive databases on key livestock traits, and internationallyleading research on approaches and methods for reducing emissions from livestock, Scottish research institutions are well placed to support innovation in the livestock sector. Recent industry initiatives are also generating comprehensive data sets on animal performance and genotypes. A key recommendation from the Farming for 1.5°C Inquiry will be around connecting and supporting these initiatives, to boost selection programmes and so to help ensure that Scottish cattle and sheep production remains among the greenest in the world.

A focus on breeding for production alone has often led in the past to unintended consequences for animal health and welfare. Most modern breeding programmes include a broader set of goals, including health and welfare, and increasingly environmental impact. The trend to broadening goals started in Scandinavia, with significant and ongoing Scottish research contributions in all major livestock species since the 1980s.

Generally, at a farming system level, changes in livestock performance lead to reductions in feed and other resources used per kg of product, and hence in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per kg product too: so-called GHG emission intensity. For instance, a comparison of US dairy systems in 1944 and 2007 estimated that the more recent systems required 21% of the animals, 23% of the feedstuffs, 35% of the water, and only 10% of the land per billion kg of milk produced. The 2007 systems produced 24% of the manure, 43% of the methane, and 56% of the nitrous oxide per billion kg of milk compared with 1944 systems.

In countries with large ruminant livestock sectors (cattle, sheep, goats, etc) they have a particularly important role in efforts to reduce GHG emissions. Ruminants have a unique ability to digest fibrous feeds like grass and forages, thanks to microbes in the rumen, but some of these bugs produce methane in the process – a potent, albeit relatively short-lived, GHG. Hence, a key future objective for ruminant

FURTHER READING

Capper JL, Cady RA, Bauman DE (2009) The environmental impact of dairy production: 1944 compared with 2007 (Journal of Animal Science, Vol 87)

28 Summer 2021

The impacts of the UK Government’s reductions in Official Dev Professor John Briggs FRSGS, RSGS Chair

In March 2021, the UK Government announced a major reduction in the amount it proposed to commit to Official Development Assistance (ODA), more commonly known as aid. Although the government is committed in law to spend 0.7% of the UK’s Gross National Income on ODA, it decided nonetheless to reduce this percentage to 0.5% and not allow any discussion in the House of Commons about this decision. Its justification for this was that emergency financial measures were needed in response to the parlous state of public finances due to the Covid pandemic. In cash terms, the reduction is about £4 billion, from about £14 billion a year to about £10 billion. Paradoxically, the same government had previously announced in November 2020 an approximate annual £4 billion increase in defence expenditure for each of the next four years.

A further consequence is that bilateral ODA support programmes with some of the poorest countries in the world have been massively cut or, in many cases, discontinued.

At the time of writing (late April 2021), the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) has still to confirm individual country budgets despite the fact that the funding year started at the beginning of April. Hence, in-country FCDO officials have had to suspend their ODA programmes for the time being. It has been reported, although not yet confirmed at the time of writing, that Yemen, the poorest country in the world, is to see its ODA budget reduced by between 60% and 80%.

“The soft power which the UK gained from its ODA programmes globally is disappearing rapidly.”

The impacts of this decision are severe.

Already, the Global Challenges Research Programme, a programme established over three years ago to promote collaborative research between research institutions in the UK and the Global South on pressing global problems affecting the Global South, such as health challenges (including Covid), environmental and climate change, renewable energy, and clean water and sanitation, has had its budget cut overnight by 70%. Research programmes are having to be cancelled with immediate effect, even if they are already under way. UK universities which have built up strong and sustainable relationships with partners in the Global South are now having these relationships strained to breaking point. The UK is no longer seen as a partner that can be trusted, and the soft power which the UK gained from its ODA programmes globally is disappearing rapidly.

At a time when the UK has taken over the presidency of the G7 group of nations, it is the only member of that group to signal a reduction in its ODA spend. Indeed, some G7 members are moving in the opposite direction to the UK and have indicated increases in their ODA spend. It is reported that France is to increase its ODA contributions by about 11%, Germany by about 13%, and even the USA by about 5%. At the proposed G7 summit in June 2021, the UK Presidency has set out the aim for the summit to build back better from the Covid-19 pandemic, and to do this in four ways. The fourth ironically is “championing global shared values” (for the record, the other three are: leading global recovery from the coronavirus while strengthening resilience against future pandemics; promoting future prosperity by championing free and fair trade; tackling climate change and preserving the planet’s biodiversity). It would seem that the other six G7 members wish to retain the “global shared value” of Official Development Assistance, with the UK appearing to be out of step here.

Although these severe reductions in ODA expenditure by the UK Government may seem bad enough, the story is not over by any means. In March 2021, the UK Government published its paper entitled Global Britain in a Competitive Age: the Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy (dubbed the Integrated Review for short). Put bluntly, this document turns the clock back 30 years. Up until 1997, each Labour administration when elected created a separate aid department, the Overseas Development Ministry, and each Conservative administration at its election abolished this government department and incorporated it back into the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). This was not an administrative convenience but an ideological commitment

by Conservative governments for aid to be a major instrument of foreign policy. In 1997, the incoming Blair government created the Department for International Development (DFID) for the first time as a quite separate ministry to be clearly independent of the FCO. The subsequent coalition government of 2010 and then the Conservative government elected in 2015 retained DFID. They recognised and appreciated the way in which DFID in its short lifetime had created a global reputation for fairness and impartiality, how it had become trusted by recipient governments, how it had put poverty reduction at the centre of its activities, and how it had created a soft power of British influence globally. Following the general election of 2019, however,

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velopment Assistance

Lord Jack McConnell FRSGS Mike Robinson, RSGS Chief Executive

the newly-elected Conservative government clearly had DFID in its sights. Hence, when the FCO and DFID were merged in September 2020 to create the new department of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the writing was on the wall. ODA was once again to become a weapon of foreign policy, and the Integrated Review of March 2021 confirmed this approach.

Interestingly, despite its title, the Integrated Review rarely mentions development or poverty reduction, but it has a lot to say on military power, cybersecurity, trade and the shift of UK focus to the IndoPacific region. There are some very telling statements in the Review about how ODA will work in the future. On pp46-47, we are told that the government will “focus our aid work on those areas which are important to a globally-focused UK,” and will “ensure close alignment of UK Aid from 2022 onwards with the objectives in this Strategic Framework.” Gone is the central commitment of UK ODA policy to raise the living standards of the world’s poorest people, including DFID’s particular commitment to the world’s poorest 20%. Now aid, as this government seems determined to call it again, will only be committed to a country if that country is strategically important to the UK.

“Gone is the central commitment of UK ODA policy to raise the living standards of the world’s poorest people.”

Perhaps the reader can be reassured by the statement, also on p46, that the government “will maintain our commitment to Africa, with a particular focus on East Africa and on important partners such as Nigeria.” However, once a little more detail is presented on p63, the reader learns that with regard to Africa the government “will work in partnership with South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Ethiopia and Ghana in particular to further our shared prosperity goals, our democratic values and our security interests.” All are middle income countries, and Kenya and Ethiopia are additionally identified as being important strategically for British political interests in the Horn of Africa. There is no mention of the poorest countries in Africa, such as Malawi, Uganda, DRC, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and so on, being supported. There is some good news for Scotland, though, as the UK Government plans to increase staffing levels at the FCDO building (the former DFID building) in East Kilbride by 50%.

With a further review of ODA promised in 2022, it is reasonable to expect a firming-up of the direction of travel described above. Gone is the commitment to raising the living standards of the world’s poorest people. In its place is a new commitment to those countries which are strategically important for the UK, in terms of defence, security and/or trade. If a country falls into one or more of these categories, it can expect ODA to flow in its direction. If not, then expect the proportion of people living in poverty globally, and those living in abject poverty, to increase.

In May, we were pleased to host former First Minister of Scotland Lord Jack McConnell for a talk entitled Building Back Better: Will the G7 Deliver? He approached the topic of the G7 by setting out the issues to be addressed, and the choices that must be made if we are to see an equitable and sustainable recovery.

At his lecture we officially presented Lord McConnell with RSGS Honorary Fellowship, in recognition of his invaluable contribution to humanitarian work, international peacebuilding, and nurturing relations between Scotland and Malawi. Lord McConnell expressed his gratitude and praised the work of the RSGS in facing environmental and social issues.

30 Summer 2021

notes from the classroom

Waking the activists: a hopeful request Jon-Paul Davies, Head of Geography, d’Overbroeck’s, Oxford

For me, this is unacceptable. I want us to do more. But in It begins with compassion*. What follows is somewhat of a the crowded school calendar of an exams-focused timetable, personal journey influenced by investigations with teachers in the vast curricula of a subject which and connected others, but one which I am is, by its nature, the study of pretty much confident will resonate among geographers *Compassion – from the Latin of all hues, as the issues lie at the very heart com pati meaning to suffer with. everything, in a globalising, ever-hastening, of the subject we love. Furthermore, it lies at Compassion takes an extra step competitive wider world, it is so challenging the heart of being citizens, or even of being for geography teachers also to change that beyond sensitivity, tenderness, human. world. Isn’t it? pity, concern, sympathy or empathy, all of which are Are geographers doing enough to develop The integrated food system as described about emotionally ‘feeling’ but in young people a sense of compassion for

by Nourish Scotland offers a revision remaining distanced. Compassion of how we see and use food and how their world, such that they may go forwards as encourages an active component, adults and make the essential changes that we interact with each other as global gets involved and seeks to remove citizens. Factfulness is a revision of we and our parents did not? Are they enabled or undo that suffering. to become activist citizens or are they, like ingrained, outdated quality-of-life values so many before them, simply along for the ride, destined to repeat the failings of the past to inevitably worsening outcomes?

I recently co-presented an online lecture, Core concerns: Apples and the geography of justice, at the Geographical Association (GA) annual conference, with Simon Kenton-Lake of the food policy and practice NGO Nourish Scotland (www.nourishscotland.org). Taking the apple as a case study, we outlined its journey from seed through production to eating and waste, to highlight the failings in the current food system and demonstrate the need for a more thorough understanding of the wider narratives of justice and sustainability. At a previous GA conference, I worked alongside Mikael Arevius of Gapminder (tools-legacy.gapminder. org/tools), bringing an external geographer into the classroom along the theme of Hans Rosling’s brilliant book Factfulness.

The year before that, I presented a conference workshop, Do cake sales work?, investigating the effectiveness of cake sales as a means of generating not just cash for charity but actual understanding among students, and whether this in turn ever generates actual change in the real world.

and an advisory message telling us how to question and review so we can obtain greater equality and shared understanding as global citizens. Many geographers share the realisation that our role is not merely teaching but so much more. Many of you reading this, I am certain, share these views. But how to do it? And what is ‘it’?

“Are geographers doing enough to develop in young people a sense of compassion for their world?”

For a number of years I have been a member of a GA forum (SCSIG, www.geography.org.uk/Sustainability-and-CitizenshipSpecial-Interest-Group) which discusses and considers citizenship and sustainability issues related to the geography classroom. Though the opinions in this article are my own, I know, via this group and anecdotally from colleagues near and far, that many geographers possess an inner desire to encourage change beyond simply teaching the rudiments of the subject to examination.

At the core of this, I am concerned that when teaching geography we are, perhaps uniquely in the school environment, delving into more than just subject matter. This for me raises big questions.

• I s it acceptable to introduce young people to the myriad problems and challenges of the world, be they natural disaster, death tolls, famine-stricken babies, or climate crisis predicted impacts, and then just leave them there?

• I s it acceptable to merely generate another generation of globally aware, factually knowledgeable, exam-passing students who can quote numbers and names of events like pub quiz specialists, but who don’t know how or where next to effectively use this information?

Beyond the school gates in the pre-Covid landscape, young people the world over were gathering in the world’s urban centres on Friday afternoons, following Greta Thunberg’s lead and protesting as the School Strike for Climate and Fridays for Future (fridaysforfuture.org) movements grew. They were (seemingly spontaneously) becoming active citizens. The school responses to their actions were widely variable. Some cracked down hard on ‘truancy’, some questioned the longterm impact on learning and exams, whilst others were hugely supportive. Parents also were mixed in response. Although cake sales may not ‘work’ in the fullest sense, they do represent the spark of compassion so many people feel when faced with an uncomfortable inequality. Greta Thunberg’s impassioned calls to arms are genuine. One can’t fail to be moved when hearing her. In class, studying natural disasters, climate change or food security issues, students will regularly ask why, seek more information, or wish to develop a fuller, tangible response to the challenges before them. I am hopeful that the students who have gone on to study our subject at university do so with some embodiment of the values discussed and initiated in my classes. But is hope enough?

In a recent online GA seminar, Nick Lapthorn (former GA president and Group Operations Manager at the Field Studies Council) placed this succinctly in the realm of the student learner. When conducting fieldwork he asked, “how will measuring 50 pebbles be ‘better’ than 20 or ten?” The students must be asking why they are measuring pebbles in the first place. Central to all geographical study is the question of Why? Within this there are myriad branching other questions. What for? What next? What if? Or perhaps, What can I do?

I am reaching out to the geography community requesting we collectively address this story through wide-reaching discussions and by highlighting those areas where successful active citizenship is (or could be) made real in our classrooms, our workplaces and our homes. And there are, of course, great examples of practice out there from which we

notes from the classroom

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can take influence and positivity; for example, Global Dimension who ask ‘how will you reboot the future?’ (globaldimension.org. uk/campaigns/how-willyou-reboot-the-future), inspiring conversation which can lead to greater understanding whilst also taking the next step towards activating change. Oxfam defines a global citizen as “someone who is aware of and understands the wider world – and their place in it. They take an active role in their community and work with others to make our planet more peaceful, sustainable and fairer.” Nourish Scotland have an overlapping focus with their desire for an integrated food system.

“I am reaching out to the geography community requesting we collectively address this story.”

I feel that the RSGS, the RGS-IBG, the GA, the government, exam boards and all of us within the community of geography education, and beyond it, need to be engaged in dialogue around how we may generate active citizens who make genuine change.

Geography places the real world into the mind of the student. In return, I believe we must do more to adequately place the students back into the real world. It begins with each of us. It begins with compassion.

Climate strike in Glasgow, September 2019. © Mike Robinson

Local sustainable activities in a post-Covid world Alastair McConnell, Head of Geography, Dollar Academy, and Chair, RSGS Education Committee

The disruption to education caused by the Covid-19 pandemic has been well documented. Online learning has gone some way to continue the provision of learning, but there is now a much greater awareness of how important schools are for the social and wellbeing side of child development. Fieldtrips, such an essential part of a geographical education, have been slashed and it is not clear when they will become possible again. This has made meaningful fieldwork much more challenging, reflected in the removal of assignments from this session’s SQA qualifications. Extra-curricular sports and activities have been equally hit, and the consequences for child wellbeing are considerable.

need for a Covid-safe working environment. Many teachers

With every challenge comes opportunity, and outdoor learning in the local area can actually be used as a way of meeting the

of achievement and can make a significant contribution to

have been taking their lessons outdoors, providing space and unlimited ventilation.

International fieldtrips have traditionally

“Outdoor learning in the local area can be used as a way of meeting the need for a Covid-safe working environment.”

provided memories for children that last a lifetime, but increasingly the environmental impact of overseas travel has raised questions about the sustainability of this practice. Will one legacy of the Covid-19 restrictions be a greater emphasis on fieldwork in the local area and educational experiences with a greater emphasis on sustainability? Activities like tree

planting and litter picking can provide memorable experiences, without the need to travel great distances. Pupils gain a sense improving their local environment.

32 Summer 2021

notes from the classroom

S2 farm visit to Claylands Farm, Balfron Rebecca Youens, Balfron High School

Teaching about farming has never been more relevant, with Brexit, debates on plant-based diets, local food production and rewilding. We incorporate farming into our S2 course. To really bring it to life we organised a field trip to a local farm for the S2 classes. We did this through RHET (Royal Highland Education Trust, www.rhet.org.uk/teachers/visit-a-farm), who made the whole process so straightforward.

RHET have a number of farms where they work with volunteer farmers to support school trips. They provide all the risk assessments so there is no lengthy paperwork to complete.

The farm visits are free, and they offer a bus subsidy of 50% up to £100 per class. There is also a pre-trip visit to the farm so you know what to expect.

to stroke the calves, which they loved).

This farm also rents land to Great British Prawns, which has the UK’s first landbased prawn farm. This is powered by cheap electricity and heat from the anaerobic digester fuelled by farm waste. There was so much for the pupils to learn about through this one field trip.

“There was so much for the pupils to learn about.”

Our farm visit was to Claylands, a local dairy farm run by the Nicholson family.

On the day, Rona Nicholson and Katie Brisbane (RHET) led two groups (26 in each) around the farm.

Pupils saw all the processes on the dairy farm (with the added bonus of being able

Chalk Talks RSGS Education Committee

Thanks to generous donations received from RSGS members and supporters in response to our Helping Hand for Schools appeal, we have been able to commission the production of an extensive series of short video Geography lessons for students studying and revising at home. The lessons summarise key topics in the Scottish Geography curriculum, at National 5 and Higher levels, and are endorsed by the Scottish Association of Geography Teachers.

The videos, which are available for free on our website and YouTube, have already received more than 7,500 views, and have generated a lot of positive feedback. We are grateful to all the financial donors, and to the Geography departments of Dollar Academy, Kilgraston School, Morrison’s Academy and Speyside High School, who have made this important project possible.

As Katie says, “An on-farm visit not only creates a lifelong memory but can give pupils inspiration of a future career path.” Covid stopped the last trip but I cannot wait to get this up and running again.

It is such a worthwhile experience for not only the pupils but also the teachers.

This is the full list of video lessons; those in italics are still in production as we go to print.

National 5 Geography (www.rsgs.org/chalk-talks-nat5)

Higher Geography (www.rsgs.org/chalk-talks-higher)

Physical Environments • Weather & Climate • Glaciated Uplands • Coastal Landscapes • Upland Limestone • Rivers & Their Valleys • Land Use & Conflicts Human Environments • Population • Urban • Rural Global Issues • Climate Change • Health • Trade & Globalisation • Environmental Hazards • Natural Regions • Tourism Skills • Map Skills

Physical Environments • Atmosphere • Hydrosphere • Biosphere • Lithosphere Human Environments • Population • Urban • Rural Global Issues • Energy • River Basin Management • Climate Change • Development & Health Skills • Geographical Skills

The

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Where does all the rain fall?

Professor Alasdair Rae FRSGS, University of Sheffield

Each summer for the past few years I’ve experimented a little bit more with mapping techniques. This time I’ve taken a look at mapping rainfall. Well, it’s mostly rain in the UK but of course to be accurate it’s about all kinds of precipitation.

But the effect I was playing around with also doubles as a kind of ‘rain shadow map’ effect, and my first go was for the UK, so rain definitely fits the bill here.

These are 3D representations of rainfall in Great Britain and Northern Ireland in 2017. The higher the peaks, the more rain fell in that area. I’ve done quite a bit of this kind of 3D mapping recently, and of course there are upsides and downsides, but I think this does a pretty good job of highlighting the peaks in precipitation and the general pattern across the areas shown.

The data are based on 1km gridded estimates of monthly rainfall, published (separately for Great Britain and Northern Ireland, hence two separate maps) by the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology. The maps were produced in Aerialod, with some pre-processing in QGIS and some file compression in IrfanView.

“The higher the peaks, the more rain fell in that area.”

34 Summer 2021

The Diplomat Geographer: James Young Simpson (1873-1934 Kenneth MacLean FRSGS, RSGS Collections Team; Charles W J Withers FRSGS, Geographer Royal for Scotland

At the end of World War I, politicians and geographers faced the task of redrawing Europe’s boundaries. Proposals for the new Europe were drawn up and examined at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and ratified in the numerous treaties which followed.

This year marks the centenary of the 1921 Commission of Arbitration which delimited the boundary between Latvia and Lithuania. This Commission [sometimes also termed the Court of Arbitration] was remarkable for its speed and efficiency, because politicians from both nations recognised the good sense of its recommendations, and for the fact that it was chaired by a Scot; the diplomat, natural scientist, and theologian James Young Simpson, later a Vice-President of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society.

James Young Simpson came from a distinguished medical family that included his great-uncle and namesake who pioneered the use of chloroform as an anaesthetic. He was educated at George Watson’s College and the University of Edinburgh, graduating MA in 1894. After a period of research at Cambridge, he was awarded his DSc at Edinburgh in 1901. Such training, coupled with a strong family attachment to the Free Church of Scotland, undergird Simpson’s strong interest in harmonising new scientific tenets with established religious beliefs.

He pursued the interconnections between the two as both teacher and writer. Until his death in 1934 he taught natural sciences at two United Free Church colleges: from 1900 at Trinity College, Glasgow, and as Professor at New College, Edinburgh. Perhaps foremost amongst his extensive published works are Landmarks in the Struggle between Science and Religion (1925) and Nature: Cosmic, Human and Divine (1929).

In 1917, Simpson joined the Department of Intelligence’s Information Bureau: what, later, became the Foreign Office’s © Diarmuid Mitchell Political Intelligence Department. By virtue of previous experience with Russia (which, in truth, was not extensive: he had befriended Prince Nicolai Galitsyn in Edinburgh in 1896 and undertaken several trips to Siberia and Russia before 1917) Simpson was given responsibility in the Foreign Office for the ‘Russian Problem’ and the Baltic States.

Simpson attended the Paris Peace Conference, where he met politicians from several Baltic states and, in a report on the possible federalisation of Russia after WWI, Simpson advocated greater independence for the Baltic states – Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which obtained independence in 1918 after the chaotic collapse of the Russian Empire at the end of the war.

Most European nations involved in the aftermath of WWI had difficulties in agreeing the bases to their new geopolitical boundaries. Ethnic, economic, military, and transport needs all intertwined, and discussions centred also upon the advantages of ‘natural’ borders such as river valleys and watersheds. The extract shown from the treaty map between Latvia and Lithuania depicts the boundary threading its way

through a landscape that bears the impact of the last glaciation of Finland and Scandinavia.

Numerous lakes, peaty swamps, fluvio-glacial ridges, and glacial erratics form a challenging undulating lowland landscape.

Coniferous forests abound in a landscape pock-marked with small and scattered peasant hamlets and numerous clearings whose reclaimed soils supported hard-won crops of hay, rye, oats, potatoes and flax.

“James Young Simpson made a lasting contribution to the geography of Europe.”

The process of delimiting a new boundary between Lithuania and Latvia began on 28 September 1920 when representatives of the two countries met, in Riga, to establish a Commission of Arbitration. The Commission comprised five men, two from each of Latvia and Lithuania, with Simpson as chair and mediating authority. The Commission began its work on 29 December 1920. It divided the boundary between the two countries into three sectors: in the west, the coastal town of Palanga and its adjacent shore; a middle stretch from Rucava to the Aluksta district; and the Aluksta district. A considerable volume of information was gathered on economic issues and the religious and ethnic characteristics of the inhabitants. For Simpson, compromise was essential as he balanced political, economic, and ethnic considerations. For example, Lithuania received Palanga with its majority of Lithuanian inhabitants from Latvia. By way of compensation, Latvia gained almost all the Aluksta district because of its ethnic preponderance. As Simpson explained, both his father and grandfather had been gynaecologists, hence he aimed to lessen the “birth pains of young states.” Under Simpson’s direction, the Commission worked intensely and effectively in 30 meetings between December 1920 and March 1921.

The Society is fortunate in having many of Simpson’s original papers from the Commission in its collections, including sheets of the

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4) and the 1921 Commission of Arbitration original demarcation map, and, in 31 pages, the minutes of the meetings of the Commission. The material was passed by Simpson to then RSGS Secretary, the economic and commercial geographer George Goudie Chisholm, first lecturer in geography at the University of Edinburgh. On passing the material to Chisholm, Simpson was insistent that no mention be made of the Foreign Office in any acknowledgement of the deposition. Simpson had earlier rejected overtures from the Foreign Office that they receive the Commission’s papers: as he wrote to Chisholm, “I would not wish any idea to get abroad that a definite request on the part of the Foreign Office had been rejected by myself.”

At the time of his death, James Young Simpson was better known as a theologian: on hearing news of his demise, the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland paused its deliberations in respect. In the RSGS Council Minutes, an obituary note for him records how “The Society ... profited by the reputation which Professor Simpson bore among the leaders of affairs in Eastern Europe,” and that he worked ungrudgingly in “the service of international peace.” Speaking

“Compromise was essential as he balanced political, economic, and ethnic considerations.”

1921 delimitation of an eastern section of the Lithuanian-Latvian boundary as affirmed by J Y Simpson.

Source: RSGS Collections.

of the Commission which Simpson chaired so effectively, one Lithuanian historian has recently argued, “The job was done so well that almost no one remembers the work of the Commission. The Latvian-Lithuanian Border stands as a monument to Great Britain’s constructive intervention into Baltic affairs after World War I.” As a diplomat geographer, James Young Simpson made a lasting contribution to the geography of Europe. In this capacity, he was widely praised in his lifetime and honoured by several of the Baltic states.

It is fitting that the RSGS should remember Simpson and his work a century later.

FURTHER READING

Alston C (2002) James Young Simpson and the LatvianLithuanian border settlement 1920-21: The papers in the archive of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society (Scottish Geographical Journal, Vol 118 (2)) Simpson JY (1900) The New Siberia (Scottish Geographical Magazine, Vol 14 (1))

36 Summer 2021

The year we’ve had Mike Robinson, RSGS Chief Executive

These past 12 months have been difficult for everyone, young and old alike, and have presented all sorts of challenges – practically, financially and mentally. We hope we are through the worst of it and can look forward with some optimism. We will be glad when conditions ease and we can move on from this constant background sense of isolation and anxiety, and re-engage socially once more.

RSGS has seen plenty of challenges, ranging from reconsidering how and where we work to understanding what we can and cannot do, and trying to keep everyone safe, the buildings secure, members engaged and the charity afloat. It has not been easy. Despite all this and more, we managed to deliver a very full programme of activity, and we are grateful to the many people who have taken the time to thank us for all we have achieved – it is really heartening to know that our efforts have been so well received.

The online weekly talks were not everyone’s cup of tea we know, but over the course of 25 weeks we engaged more than 10,000 households. We had a further 2,000 for the special An Evening With events, most notably that with Michael Palin, a wonderful evening for everyone who could attend.

We produced the extra ‘armchair edition’ of The Geographer early in lockdown to try to help, and each issue of The Geographer since has been a bumper edition, offering more content and interest than before; we are grateful to all those who contributed to make them possible. We ran coffee mornings for volunteers, and monthly quiz nights for members and supporters.

“Over the past decade we have grown into one of the most respected and trusted convenors of scientific debate and discussion in Scotland.” respected and trusted convenors of scientific debate and discussion in Scotland, and one of the most dynamic geographical societies in the world. We have now run ten Climate Emergency Summits with up to 100 organisations represented at a time, looking at ways to help sectors respond to climate change. Topics have ranged from construction and coronavirus recovery to food, transport, procurement and nature-based solutions. The resulting reports have been very well received in government and across the policy community, feeding into sectoral and policy thinking in several areas. And there is demand to run more.

We have worked with an exceptional group of young women to help them produce the latest Young Geographer magazine, on a theme of climate justice; we worked with six other organisations to help coordinate efforts to produce a consensus of positive action people would like to see from COP26; and we are involved in producing a film and a whisky to mark Scotland’s leadership in climate action ahead of COP26. And in the summer, working with the RGS-IBG and IGU, we are convening a group of international geographical societies to see how we might work more closely together to show how geography can help solve some of the most critical global issues.

“We are grateful to the many people who have taken the time to thank us for all we have achieved.”

We have been developing educational resources to support teachers and pupils in this especially challenging period for everyone in education. The Chalk Talks, a result of the Helping Hand for Schools fundraising appeal back in October, have been well received. There are currently 23 online lessons available, covering much of the Higher and National 5 curriculum, with more being developed as you read this and already over 9,000 views between them. We have produced curricular-linked lesson plans for teachers, and are developing other resources more suitable for younger children: the longawaited Horrible Geography of Scotland, and an illustrated children’s book about James Croll, both due out in the summer.

We have been extremely active in convening and contributing positively to wide-ranging policy discussions, especially around climate change. I have heard some negative comment that we perhaps do too much on climate, and I am sorry if people think that, but it is a growing issue and the past two years have seen it gain more public attention than ever.

If geography is going to prove its currency it needs to be involved in critical current issues and, with the possible exception of Covid, there is none more current than climate change. This year, with the big UN meeting on climate change (COP26) in Glasgow in November, the focus is greater than ever, and I am delighted to say that RSGS is heavily involved, helping reinforce the importance of geography in one of the defining issues of our generation, in a year when the world will be looking to Scotland.

Over the past decade we have grown into one of the most

In addition, our Climate Solutions course, which helps get managers up to speed with the science and solutions of climate change, has really taken off. A free Student version (MOOC) is now available, in addition to the Professional and Accelerator courses, launched in 2020 for everyone in work.

Up until now, geography has not successfully proved it is part of the solution. As a result, it has lost some of its popularity (there has been a 43% drop-off in geosciences uptake in some universities, in part because it is seen as intrinsically linked to oil and gas). If we want our subject to thrive, and to ensure that young people can look forward with hope, optimism and excitement, then we need to play our full part.

At every stage in RSGS’s long history we have hosted and celebrated many of the people who have stood out for leading and championing change in their own time, by pushing the boundaries of science, exploration and human endeavour.

At a time of significant global crises, it is vital that we reinforce our credibility as a charity, maximise the regard for the subject area, and honour our responsibility to future generations. And to do all of that, we need to be involved in the things that matter, in our time, and into the future.

I think we have made great inroads in this area over the past few years. And I hope we can count on your support, through encouragement and participation, through membership and legacies, and through donations and volunteering, to help us continue to do so.

Craft the RSGS

The

Geographer 37

Summer 2021

Ultimate Pollution,

by Barbara Rasmusen

Here we live in the stomach of a monster.

Twiddlemuff, by Marjory Howat

Power Surge, by Dennis Donaldson

Planet after planet, sun after sun, whirling around in what we think is space, hurtling towards us particles of sustenance, comets, asteroids, clouds of swirling gas.

If we ever reach the outward bounds of the firmament, will we hit the stomach wall and give the monster an ulcer?

Stop the Plastic Tide, by Catherine Gemmell

Antarctic Tapestry, by Dr Kate Winter Collections, by Pat Brown

The eclectic group haunt the Fair Maid’s House, often deeply silent, sometimes voluble as their thoughts ricochet or interconnect.

Searching, always searching for the next windows of discovery or inspiration – in an old volume, an undisturbed pile of maps, crammed boxes, perhaps a faded photograph.

This place is a black hole, holding captive countless records of bygone lives; so much confined in such a small space.

RSGS Medal Tree, by Margaret Wilkes

Creag Mhor, by Rachel Brackenridge

As they follow ghostly leads into unknown or forgotten worlds, as they are drawn through yet more portals of discovery, so the dilemmas and challenges grow – how to untangle the myriad of threads in the webs of past lives and deeds and quantify them for the present day.

Here is an amorphous treasure house which must not be allowed to fade into oblivion.

This is the lure every week for the immersed figures who blend our past history into the future.

Greta Thunberg,

by Margaret Bowman

Over the past year, we have been encouraging our members and supporters to ‘Craft the RSGS’ – a positive creative response to the pandemic and the lockdown restrictions. We have received some really lovely contributions, which we were hoping to put on display in our visitor centre.

However, as it is still not clear when we will next be able to open to the public, we decided to share some of them with you here!

Ice Melts Quickly,

by Elizabeth Robb

Representing Weather,

by Karen Thomson

Arctic Isolation,

by Lisbeth Kervell

Kon-Tiki, by Donald Donaldson

Explorer’s Kit, by Maggie Ewen

38 Summer 2021

Bush life and the Deh Cho Elders: respecting the environment Dr Carol J Brown-Leonardi, The Open University Today was my first encounter with the subsistence lifestyle: a tent, a bag of essential clothing, a sleeping bag, and strictly no food items. Subsistence living means I will harvest and eat what the land has to offer; to connect with nature and rely on the gifts that it presents to me.

The Deh Cho Elders in sub-Arctic Canada often speak of land in terms of their mobility, frequently constructing life stories as narratives. For the Deh Cho Dene, the bush refers to the land that involves the ecosystem, which is essential to the subsistence way of life. Their understanding of land ownership rarely includes formal boundaries and is expressed in terms of knowledge acquired over a lifetime.

Elders’ narratives are recognised as an educational tool and alternative knowledge system that has the power to influence.

Their traditional ideology is that the land and its resources should benefit future generations to come.

Many Elders were keen to talk about their experiences in the bush, and gave detailed descriptions of the cultural activities that were carried out on a daily basis in which self-reliance has a central role. Many of the Elders that I spoke to were respected hunters, trappers and land users in the Deh Cho region. Almost all the interviews with the Elders described the basic but important elements of living on the land, and could be readily compared with the other interviews that documented the same activities but in different settings.

The Elders told stories and showed concern about keeping knowledge of the traditional land use culture alive. They took great care to highlight the value of the bush, in addition to the tragic consequences that would follow if the subsistence lifestyle were not practised. They were mostly concerned about the decline in animal population and the effects of modern consumerism on the environment. Most thought the bush was an important safety net for the next generation in order for them to keep their independence. The impression the interviews give is that the bush offers self-reliance and a degree of economic independence, as the hunter is not reliant on consumerism. The most salient concern in these interviews was for the stewardship of the environment by the next generation.

From the Elders’ narratives it is clear that the reciprocal relationship with the fragile sub-Arctic and Arctic environment is important for sustainable development in line with the growing concerns for environmental protection. The

Liard River at Blackstone Territorial Park, Northwest Territories, Canada. © awmcphee

land is central in Deh Cho Dene culture and viewed as a blanket that should not be divided. The respect for the land originates from the principle that it protects them by providing everything that they need to survive. Deh Cho Dene perceive the land in its entirety, where damage to one area is harmful to other areas. For instance, in an Elder’s interview, a comparison was made with the human body, where disabling the body in one region affects the entire body negatively.

This brief insight explains why the stewardship of the land and protecting it against development is central in Deh Cho Dene subsistence lifestyle and politics. In the subsistence lifestyle, the protection of the land is demonstrated in harvesting enough renewable resources required for survival. This is further supported by the restoration of territorial lands that have been used for seasonal settlement.

“Their traditional ideology is that the land and its resources should benefit future generations to come.”

The culture of protecting and valuing the land as found in the subsistence lifestyle is reflected in Deh Cho Dene politics. In recent years, Deh Cho Dene have significantly modified their approach to negotiating self-government and land settlement.

For Deh Cho Dene, the land is the most significant aspect of their culture. This is supported by a Deh Cho Dene trapper: “In our land here, in the Deh Cho in the Liidlii Kue First Nations traditional lands, we try to keep everything intact because Dene means spirit of the lands and that’s what we are. If you remove one, then we do not have this fantastic combination. So, in order to preserve the Dene way of life, to maintain and hang on to the culture, you need to have a base, which is the land. If you remove any one of that or you remove the land, then you are no longer a Dene.” Thus, their relationship with the land as well as with one another forms the basis for the primary principles in their society.

I was inspired by the Elders’ narratives and their commitment to subsistence living to strike a balance between humans and nature in a traditional subsistence economy. Perhaps passing knowledge down through the generations can sustain these traditional principles and initiate change for a sustainable future that will protect the sub-Arctic and Arctic environment in this global environmental crisis.

The

39 Geographer14-

Summer 2021

HRH The Duke of Edinburgh (1921-2021) Jo Woolf FRSGS, RSGS Writer-in-Residence

As a member of the British royal family, The Duke of Edinburgh has been a familiar and much-respected figure ever since 1947, when he married Princess Elizabeth.

A Prince of Greece, descended from the royal houses of Denmark and Germany, his charisma won over the hearts of the British people who loved him for his handsome good looks and his refreshingly unstuffy attitude to protocol.

Green Pilgrimage Network, which monitors the environmental impact caused by 150 million spiritual journeys worldwide.

“He believed in the importance of educating young people about their responsibilities to society and the environment.”

The Duke has stood loyally by the side of the Queen on countless official engagements, and accompanied her on hundreds of overseas tours; but he has never been content to take a back seat, and in his seven decades of public service he has given his unstinting support to a diverse range of charities and other organisations.

It is almost impossible to discover the private thoughts of The Duke of Edinburgh, as many interviewers have found to their cost. His family’s lifestyle of privilege and status fell apart very shortly after he was born, following the overthrow of the Greek monarchy. Thereafter, he grew up with no particular sense of home: his early years were spent in boarding schools across Europe, and this, coupled with the tragic circumstances that befell many of his close family, taught him to be strong, stoical and self-reliant.

The Duke’s lifelong fondness for plain speaking, combined with an inquisitive mind and a sharp sense of humour, has perhaps not always brought him the kind of media attention that he was seeking (if, indeed, he ever desired any at all).

It is a shame that the popular press dissect his every word in search of unintended insults, because his actions, if they would but study them for a few minutes, speak far more truthfully about his loyalties and his passions.

“The trouble is that everything in nature is completely inter-dependent. Tinker with one part of it and the repercussions ripple out in all directions.”

The Duke of Edinburgh had a firm and detailed grasp of the principles of conservation, and he was under no illusions about how an ecological balance can be maintained. He also believed in the importance of educating young people about their responsibilities to society and the environment, and this was one of his motivations for setting up The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme in 1956.

Participants can choose from a programme of outdoor activities which are designed to help them develop leadership skills and inspire them with a sense of commitment and self-confidence. Many of the projects are focused on conservation and environmental research, and in this way successive generations of young people are gaining a real sense of responsibility towards the long-term future of the planet. So far, an incredible eight million people worldwide have taken part.

Typically self-effacing, The Duke of Edinburgh tended to downplay his contribution to good causes, preferring to highlight the efforts of others; but there is no doubt about his legacy, because it speaks for itself.

“‘The trouble is that everything in nature is completely inter-dependent.’”

“The conservation of nature, the proper care for the human environment and a general concern for the long-term future of the whole of our planet are absolutely vital if future generations are to have a chance to enjoy their existence on this Earth.”

In 1986, in his role as President of the World Wide Fund for Nature, The Duke of Edinburgh marked the charity’s 25th anniversary by bringing together representatives of the world’s five major religions – Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism and Islam – and asking them to describe how their faith advised them to care for the natural world.

Quite appropriately, this landmark event took place in the Italian town of Assisi.

This imaginative venture resulted in the Assisi Declarations: a statement of commitment was issued by members of each religion, emphasising the responsibility of man to conserve the natural world, with reference to the teachings of each individual faith. Since then, four more religions have produced declarations; and in 1995 The Duke of Edinburgh launched the Alliance of Religions and Conservation, which upholds these principles with thousands of faith-based projects and long-term plans for sustainability. Linked with this is the

The Duke of Edinburgh was awarded the Livingstone Medal in 1998 “in recognition of his contributions to conservation as President of the World Wide Fund for Nature, to the advancement of British science and technology, and to the personal development of young people through the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme.”

40 Summer 2021

An interview with Tim Flannery Jo Woolf FRSGS, RSGS Writer-in-Residence

Being an adviser on climate change in Australia brings with it a unique set of challenges, and no one knows them better than Tim Flannery. In 2013, he lost his job as Australia’s Chief Climate Commissioner when the new Coalition government abolished the Climate Commission; his response was to set up an independent Climate Council (www. climatecouncil.org.au) with direct public support. He spoke to me about the revelations that have shaped his career, the challenges that still lie ahead, and his hopes for the longterm future.

Firstly, I was intrigued to know how Tim became involved with the science of climate change. He told me that his first awareness happened almost by chance. In the mid-1980s, his doctorate studies in palaeontology and mammalogy took him to New Guinea, where he discovered an astonishing 30 species of mammal that were new to science – among them five species of tree kangaroos. But in the high mountains he saw something else that interested him: “I noticed that everywhere the tree line was rising – the alpine zone was shrinking as it was getting warmer. Initially, I thought it was due to some human artefact, perhaps anthropogenic burning, but it was so widespread that it was clearly a real phenomenon.”

Tim put these observations to the back of his mind, but they resurfaced a few years later when he was asked to advise an Australian state premier on environmental threats. He says, “I thought I’d better read all the scientific literature, and I realised that I’d under-estimated climate change as a threat.

And that was it. I decided to give up my field research and concentrate on climate change, because I realised that the animals I was studying were unlikely to be there for much longer unless we did something about it.”

Tim’s concern for the environment inspired articles in mainstream and academic publications, and his book, The Future Eaters (1994) won literary awards. He served on the boards of wildlife and environmental organisations, and in 2007 he co-founded and chaired the Copenhagen Climate Council. Appointed Australia’s Chief Climate Commissioner in 2010, for three years he advised the government on innovative solutions to climate change… and then, abruptly, he lost his job. When the 2013 federal election was won by the LiberalNational Coalition, climate change was no longer high on the political agenda.

Tim explains, “The new government’s first act was to abolish the Climate Commission. But myself and my fellow Commissioners wouldn’t accept being sacked. We were providing a service to the Australian community, giving them very clear advice on climate change, so we decided to continue doing that. We set up a crowdfunding initiative and the money just rolled in – people really wanted us to do the job. Today, as the Climate Council, we’re employing 50 people, whereas under the Climate Commission we only employed five. Our budget is far larger, and we’re more influential and effective.”

Although 80% of Australians now understand that there is a

problem, the Climate Council is trying to recover lost ground in the political arena. “We were weaning ourselves off fossil fuels when I was Climate Commissioner. We had a carbon tax in place and we were doing really well. But as soon as the government abolished the carbon tax, people went back to business as usual. Since then, the government has been handing out subsidies to the fossil fuel industries.”

Tim finds it especially frustrating that Australia’s renewable resources are second to none, yet the country is still more than 60% dependent on coal for its electricity, and Australia is the world’s largest exporter of coal by calorific value. The situation is complicated because the livelihoods of thousands of people depend on this industry: coal miners understand climate change but still need to support their families. When Tim joined us for the RSGS Inspiring People event on 21st April, he was in the Hunter Valley in New South Wales, speaking to mining communities. He understands their concern: “It’s really tough. My heart goes out to them.

I’m doing as much outreach as I can, because if these communities can organise and ask for a better future – ask for more investment and new initiatives – they can do really well. But every election, the politicians tell them, ‘If you haven’t got coal, you’ve got nothing.’ It keeps people fearful and captive.”

“Australia’s renewable resources are second to none, yet the country is still more than 60% dependent on coal for its electricity.”

Tim explains that, while the need for action is recognised at state level, the federal parliament is quite remote. “It’s not as directly accountable as the state governments and the local councils, so there’s a disconnect. There are probably only about 20 or 25 people in that parliament who are holding the whole nation to ransom. They’ll go from their position as Minister for Energy onto the board of a big energy company and they’ll invite former lobbyists for the energy companies to be advisers; so the energy companies write the legislation, quite often. It’s tragic.”

On Earth Day (22nd April) a virtual summit took place between 40 world leaders, including President Biden, Boris Johnson, and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

Tim was disappointed at the lack of commitment from Australia. “A number of countries doubled down on their pledges and said they were going to double their ambition, including the US. China made some important concessions. Australia gave nothing, really; just more talk about how we’re going to solve the problems with technology rather than targets.”

Australia’s standpoint is especially surprising in view

The

41 Geographer14-

Summer 2021

of the catastrophic bush-fires of 2019-20. Tim says that this environmental disaster was not unforeseen. “At the Climate Council we had a number of retired fire chiefs and other community leaders as our Councillors. They said to us, ‘We’ve had two of the driest years on record, we can see that the forests are ready to go up, and we need to start planning in advance.

We need to reserve aircraft for firefighting.’ We had a plan, but we couldn’t get a meeting with the Prime Minister. Greg Mullens, our retired fire chief from New South Wales, was almost in tears. He could see what was going to happen. And as the fires reached their peak, the Prime Minister was on holiday in Hawaii.”

“Australia’s standpoint is especially surprising in view of the catastrophic bush-fires of 2019-20.”

In contrast, the proactive response of young people to climate change can only be seen as a sign of hope. Tim says that in Australia, the support for school strikes has been massive. “Young people… understand what’s happening and they want change.

They also see their future prosperity in it. Australia could be a global leader in terms of a clean energy revolution. We’ve got more solar and wind potential than almost anywhere.”

Some solutions are already in place. Tim is a Patron of the Tenkile Conservation Alliance which works with rainforest communities in Papua New Guinea, improving their wellbeing without damaging the environment. He says, “We’re seeing an enormous rebound in the biodiversity. Tree kangaroos that were on the brink of extinction are now being seen around people’s gardens for the first time in decades. It’s fantastic.”

He also supports the Australian Museum’s work with the Kwaio people in the Solomon Islands, improving conservation practice while strengthening the Kwaio culture.

Australia will be represented at the COP26 Climate Summit in November, and Tim is ever hopeful of change. “Whatever

happens with Australia, the meeting has to be a success. We are at the crossroads now, and I think with the EU and the Biden administration taking such strong measures, it will be hard for the rest of the world to resist.”

Tim’s new book, The Climate Cure: Solving the Climate Emergency in the Era of COVID-19, compares the global response to COVID-19 with the global response to climate change, and sets out a plan for recovery. He sees the solution as a three-part act: stopping the spread, dealing effectively with casualties, and finding the equivalent of a vaccine. Citing Sir David Attenborough’s Witness Statement, he says that we need to restore the Earth’s capacity to manage itself, and investigate methods of drawing down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. “If we can do that, we’ll strengthen the natural systems the Earth uses to maintain climate stability and we can avoid the worst of this crisis.”

Finally, I cannot resist asking Tim about his connection with the Norwegian explorer Otto Sverdrup. He explains that the family of his maternal grandfather, Fridtjof Thygesen, lived in Bergen and were directly related to Sverdrup. As the Captain of Fridtjof Nansen’s ship, Fram, Sverdrup explored vast regions of the Arctic in the late 1800s and he also accompanied Nansen on his trek across Greenland. He was awarded the RSGS Silver Medal in 1903, and it could be said that Tim is following in his ancestor’s footsteps by receiving the Geddes Environment Medal in 2021. Tim is typically modest about this achievement: “Can I just say how immensely proud I am to have this medal. It’s just extraordinary to me that I would be thought of in the same breath as Greta Thunberg and the other recipients!”

We beg to differ, and wish Tim all the very best with his future endeavours.

The RSGS Geddes Environment Medal and Honorary Fellowship were awarded to Professor Tim Flannery for his sustained leadership of advocacy regarding climate change and his major contribution to public understanding of global ecology and Earth system science.

BOOK CLUB

42 Summer 2021

James Croll and his Adventures in Climate and Time Jo Woolf (author) and Dylan Gibson (illustrator)

Special Reader Offer

Buy one now: online from rsgs.org/shop; by post from RSGS HQ (cheque payable to ‘RSGS’); by phone on 01738 455050.

Available from July: pre-order now for £10.00 (RRP £12.99)

including UK P&P.

RSGS: a better way to see the world Phone 01738 455050 or visit www.rsgs.org to join the RSGS. Lord John Murray House, 15-19 North Port, Perth, PH1 5LU Charity SC015599

James Croll and his Adventures in Climate and Time is bursting with energy and colour.

It tells Croll’s life story in an exciting new way, and explains some of the science behind his revolutionary theories.

Croll was a brilliantminded Scotsman who defied poverty and ill health to become one of the world’s first climate scientists.

Published for RSGS, the book is intended for young secondary school students, but we hope that it will be enjoyed by readers of all ages.

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Printed by www.jtcp.co.uk on Claro Silk 115gsm paper. 100% FSC certified using vegetable-based inks in a 100% chemistry-free process.

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