Scotland is Going Net Zero
With an abundance of striking natural landscapes and habitats that are home to thousands of varieties of flora and fauna, Scotland is uniquely positioned to tackle climate change. As part of our biodiversity commitments we have increased woodland creation targets to 18,0000 hectares per year by 2024/25, and have increased the native woodland creation target. We are also restoring 250,000 hectares of degraded and drained peatland back to functioning ecosystems. This reduces the carbon that peatlands release and will eventually enable them to absorb carbon from the atmosphere. Not only do restored peatlands act as natural carbon capture systems, they also benefit wildlife such as dragonflies and birds and can even improve water quality.
In 2019, the Scottish Government was invited by the Convention on Biological Diversity to lead a consultation with sub-national bodies on their role in addressing the biodiversity crisis., This culminated in the Edinburgh Declaration which called for a dedicated decision and a renewed Plan of Action on Subnational Governments. Over 300 sub-national governments signed the Declaration and it had a high profile at COP15 in 2022, where the final agreement of the Kunming-Montreal global biodiversity framework incorporated the text in the Declaration and adopted the renewed Plan of Action on Subnational Governments. We have since remained an active member of key international networks which are crucial to support and enhance our domestic work to mitigate the effects of biodiversity loss, and we will continue work to raise ambition for biodiversity internationally.
Our ambitious new biodiversity strategy sets out goals to halt nature loss by 2030 and reverse it by 2045, and a long-term vision of what our natural environment needs to look like in 2045 in order to reverse biodiversity decline. We are committed to expanding and improving areas managed for nature, including protected areas, with an ambitious commitment to protect 30% of our land for nature by 2030- also a key target in the new Global Biodiversity Framework.
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