Environment

The Moray Eco Youth Fund for Sustainability is now open to applications.

An amount of £33,333 from Moray’s portion of Just Transition Participatory Budgeting Fund has been dedicated to youth-led sustainability projects.

Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) has applied to NatureScot for a licence to release beavers into Loch Beinn a Mheadhoin, in Glen Affric.

The move follows two years of consultation with local communities and land managers, carried out by FLS and project partners, Trees for Life.

If the application is successful, it is anticipated that beavers, translocated from parts of Scotland, will be released in Spring of 2025.

Highlands Rewilding has just published its Fourth Annual Natural Capital Report. 

The report focuses on a year of baseline biodiversity monitoring at the Tayvallich estate on the west coast of Scotland, along with monitoring and restorative updates from its two other Scottish estates, Bunloit, on the banks of Loch Ness, and Beldorney, in Aberdeenshire.

More than 1,200 hectares of degraded rainforest habitat are now on the road to recovery thanks to Scottish Government funding.

Almost £5 million has already been invested in rainforest restoration since 2023 and a further £5 million for ongoing restoration efforts was allocated as part of the draft 2025/26 Budget.

Actions to protect some of Scotland’s most vulnerable marine species are being consulted on by the Scottish Government.

Climate change, invasive non-native species such as brown rat, food shortages and other pressures are contributing to the dramatic declines seen in seabird numbers. Almost two thirds of Scotland’s seabird species have declined over the last 20 years, with eight including the Arctic tern, kittiwake and black-headed gull declining by more than 50%.

NatureScot has awarded grants totalling over £1 million to projects that will restore bogs for rare dragonflies in northern Scotland, create hedgerows for sparrows in Glasgow and help bring back native oysters to the Bay of Firth in Orkney.

Members of the Scottish public have aided critical red squirrel conservation efforts by partaking in the sixth annual Great Scottish Squirrel Survey. In a year of mixed fortunes for red squirrels in Scotland, public squirrel sightings have proved more important than ever for work being undertaken by conservationists across the country.

The Paths for All fund, the Ian Findlay Path Fund (IFPF), supports the improvement of local path networks within and between communities, making it easier for people to choose to walk wheel or cycle for everyday journeys. 

An updated Biodiversity Strategy and a new Biodiversity Delivery Plan for 2024-2030, containing over 100 actions to accelerate the pace and scale of efforts to address the biodiversity crisis, has been published. 

Enhancing water and air quality, protecting and restoring vulnerable marine and coastal ecosystems, and establishing a programme of species recovery are all part of a new plan to make significant progress in restoring nature by 2045.

The Carbon Neutral Islands (CNI) Progress Report 2023-2024 has been published.

It highlights some of the exciting projects that have been taking place across the six islands which are part of the project (Barra, Cumbrae, Hoy, Islay, Raasay and Yell).