Nature protection scorecard launched to track Scottish government performance - Scottish Environment Link

Scottish Environment LINK has today (Friday 28 August) launched a new Nature Protection Scorecard to track the performance of the Scottish government and public bodies in protecting and restoring the natural environment.

The scorecard collates a range of data to judge how well the Scottish government is performing and the extent to which public bodies are using their enforcement powers. While not intended to be comprehensive, the scorecard shines a spotlight on the Scottish public bodies with most significant responsibility for environmental delivery, and focuses on action and resourcing.

The level of monitoring of Scotland’s most important sites for nature is among the metrics tracked in the scorecard. The figures show that just under 3% of Scotland’s protected sites underwent site condition monitoring by NatureScot in 2025. This was a fall from 2021, when 5.3% of protected sites were monitored. 

The monitoring of rivers and lochs has increased slightly over the past 3 years. 25% of rivers were visited by Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) Ecology staff in 2025, a rise from 19% in 2023. Monitoring of lochs was significantly lower, with only 14 of Scotland’s 334 lochs (4%) visited in 2025.