CIEEM NGO Impact Award Winner, sponsored by Countryside Jobs Service – Nature Champions

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By Andrew Marks, Nature Champions Coordinator, Scottish Environment LINK

It’s a breezy August afternoon in North Berwick, East Lothian, and representatives from Scottish Environment LINK are joined at the harbour by nine Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs), representing three different political parties. The eager faces assembled are about to climb aboard a catamaran on a trip to the islands of the Firth of Forth led by Scottish Environment LINK member, the Scottish Seabird Centre. The aim of this trip is to introduce MSPs firsthand to kittiwakes, puffins, seals, gannets, and who knows, maybe a cetacean or two. The highlight of the trip will be the cacophony of soaring, crying and diving Northern gannets that blanket Bass Rock, which we hope will inspire a sense of wonder that will reinforce the importance of protecting our native wildlife for future generations.

These nine MSPs are all ‘Nature Champions’ and each MSP is championing a threatened or iconic species or habitat as part of Scottish Environment LINK’s Nature Champions initiative. Today’s attending Nature Champions include the champion for the UK BAP priority habitat, ‘maritime cliffs and slopes’, as well as the Nature Champions for the Manx shearwater and the blue whale, to name a few. As part of the Nature Champions initiative, MSPs are partnered with those Scottish Environment LINK member organisations that are leading on the conservation of their given species or habitat, and many have joined us for the boat trip today. These organisations support Nature Champions and raise awareness of the threats that Scotland’s different species and habitats are facing, as well as highlighting the political action needed to halt or reverse declines.

There is, however, something a little deceiving in the title ‘Nature Champion’. When Members of the Scottish Parliament sign up to become a Nature Champion with Scottish Environment LINK, they aren’t expected to know much, if anything, about the species or habitat that they will champion over the duration of that Parliamentary session. Instead, there is a simple hope that through engaging with their species and habitat in situ, along with those individuals and communities leading on the conservation of that species and habitat, that they too will discover the importance and value of that species or habitat and be moved to advocate for its protection and recovery in the Scottish Parliament. Indeed, part of the beauty of the initiative is its ability to offer a new ecological perspective on an MSP’s constituency, to foster a safe environment for cross-party MSPs to ask questions about biodiversity, and to get excited about the extraordinary diversity of our native wildlife. At its most powerful, the initiative forges unanticipated connections and attachments between our elected representatives and our natural environment at a time when 1 in 9 species in Scotland are threatened with national extinction (State of Nature, 2023).

Since its inception in 2013, the Nature Champions initiative has had a significant positive impact on the quality of the debate surrounding Scotland’s natural environment. Nature Champions have lodged over 200 Parliamentary Motions and Questions in support of their species or habitats and discussed their roles in 17 specific Parliamentary Debates. They have also taken part in hundreds of site visits and constituency activities across the country – from night bat walks to flame shell snorkel trips. Today, there are over ninety MSPs participating in the initiative, representing all six Scottish political parties and including party leaders, Ministers and Cabinet Secretaries. The success of the initiative within and beyond the Scottish Parliament has been empowering, with similar programmes taking off in Wales, Northern Ireland and England, as well as within schools, community groups and local authorities – all commemorated in 2023 by both a Parliamentary Motion and a free, public exhibition taking place outside of the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh to mark the initiative’s tenth year.

To top off the festivities of our tenth anniversary, we were delighted that the Nature Champions initiative was awarded the NGO Impact Award, sponsored by Countryside Jobs Service, at the CIEEM 2024 Awards in London on 28th June. This award, along with the continued support of MSPs of the past 11 years, clearly illustrates how one of the most impactful tools in environmental advocacy and awareness-raising remains simply taking people into our wild places and letting nature do the rest.

Our boat approaches Craigleith island and we can hear the kittiwakes crying their names out from the rockface. Over the boat’s tannoy system, my colleagues from the Scottish Seabird Centre are describing the devastating impacts of the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) on local seabird populations and why urgent action is needed to secure seabird recovery and protect Scotland’s seas to improve the resilience of existing populations to future threats. As we draw towards the island’s edge, the sleek face of a grey seal bobs up beside a protruding rock, its large black eyes staring intently at something on the island. The Nature Champion for the harbour seal, though not fortunate enough to see her own species on this particular trip, does not seem disappointed and is beaming as she looks through her binoculars. I keep my fingers crossed that we are half as lucky for the Nature Champion for the humpback whale, who looks out towards the choppy seas, one giant spotted feeding off the east of the Isle of May only a few weeks ago.

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