Biodiversity
Biodiversity is the variety of life on earth. Scotland's
biodiversity includes more than 90,000 species, the ecological
roles they perform, their genetic variation and the habitat and
ecosystems they depend on. It also includes humans and our
interactions with the environment.
Biodiversity is essential to sustaining the natural systems that
provide us with vital goods and services, such as food, fuel and
water supply (and regulation), nutrient recycling and carbon
sequestration. These services underpin our lives and are crucial to
our survival.
The United Nations designated 2010 as the International Year of
Biodiversity (IYB). This press release
details SEPA's work in protecting and enhancing biodiversity in
2010.
SEPA's role
SEPA has a key role in safeguarding and improving Scotland's
biodiversity. We focus on the critical threats facing Scotland's
biodiversity – climate change, invasive non-native species and
habitat fragmentation and loss – and we use a variety of approaches
to make sure those threats are being managed effectively across the
country:
- regulation – we protect and improve the biodiversity of land,
air and water by setting environmental standards and making sure
those standards are met;
- influencing – we provide advice and guidance which promotes
good practice to protect biodiversity eg on soil quality
protection, renewable energy development and SUDS
design;
- partnership working – we work with other organisations and
communities to integrate biodiversity protection into projects and
plans.
The threats to biodiversity in Scotland need to be addressed at
a functional ecosystem scale through an integrated partnership
approach, for example through the river basin management planning
process and the Scottish Biodiversity Strategy. We are a key
partner in the delivery of the
Scottish Biodiversity Strategy, influencing action within
biodiversity partnerships at UK, national and local level.
To help deliver the biodiversity duty placed on all public
bodies by the Nature Conservation (Scotland) 2004 Act, we are also
protecting biodiversity by having a biodiversity action plan in
place at all our offices with grounds by March 2011. In this
section of our website you can find out more about our biodiversity
work in: