More than three quarters of Scotland’s natural features are in good condition or on the road to recovery, new figures show.
Official statistics published by Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) show that 78.8% of more than 5,000 features on protected nature sites were assessed as in a favourable or recovering condition in the last year. Natural features include habitats, species and geological features such as fossil beds and caves.
The figure has remained relatively stable since last year but is up over the long-term from 71.4% in 2005.
Around two-thirds (65.4%) of features were found to have already reached favourable condition, with a further 13.3% assessed as on the road to recovery.
Dragonflies, marine habitats and earth science were the categories with the highest proportion of features in favourable condition, while the biggest increases were noted in vascular plants (up 1.3 percentage points), as well as heath and upland habitats (up 0.8 and 0.6 percentage points respectively).
Meanwhile the largest decrease was for fish (down 4.4 percentage points). There are a relatively small number of features in this category (46 in total) and analysis shows the drop is due to a decline in the abundance of two arctic charr populations on different sites, the causes of which are being investigated as there appears to be a healthy population of younger fish and no apparent change to their habitat.
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Posted On: 13/05/2020