Fisheries Management Scotland are extremely concerned to learn that funding from the Nature Restoration Fund to support crucial projects to help address the biodiversity crisis in Scotland is being reduced and diverted to support local authority pay increases. A BBC article indicates that Scottish ministers have written to councils telling them to divert the current year’s allocations from the Nature Restoration Fund to settle pay deals. This means that £5m of the £29.2m will be used to support pay increases rather than deliver the nature restoration work it was originally intended to support. For many of our members – the charitable rivers and fisheries trusts and district salmon fishery boards – this funding supports the delivery of crucial projects in collaboration with councils to restore Scotland’s aquatic environment. The Nature Restoration Fund is also specifically identified in Scotland’s Wild Salmon Strategy as a means of delivering the actions identified in the Implementation Plan.

Dr Alan Wells, Chief Executive said “It is now widely recognised that Scotland is facing a biodiversity crisis and urgent and widespread action is required. We are therefore deeply concerned to learn of funding being diverted away from restoring nature. Many of the actions that are taken to restore nature have wider benefits to the public, including protecting our rivers from the effects of climate warming, flood prevention and access to nature. Our members often work in partnership with Local Authorities to deliver projects to restore the natural environment. This announcement appears to be at odds with the Scottish Government’s Biodiversity Strategy and its stated targets to be Nature Positive by 2030 and to have restored and regenerated biodiversity across the country by 2045.”