NB19 Proportion of notified habitats and species in ‘positive’ condition

According to Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), ‘climate change is the single greatest threat to Scotland's habitats’ (SNH 2015a). Whilst some habitats will be affected directly, due to sea-level rise or coastal erosion for example, for most, climate change will alter the complex ecological balances that allow the plants and animals to grow and thrive. Many species will be directly impacted by these changes, but indirect effects will potentially impact upon an even wider number of plant and animal species, for example via interactions with pollution, or habitat loss and fragmentation, which may prevent an effective response to climate change (Scottish Government, 2009a).

The ability of habitats to respond quickly enough will be limited- large habitats with few or minor existing pressures, and strong supporting natural processes are likely to do better than small, fragmented and isolated areas with additional pressures that will be more vulnerable to irreversible damage from rapid climate change (SNH 2015a). Species also vary considerably in their ability to adapt to climate change. Species that are habitat specialists or which are geographically restricted are potentially the most at risk.

Site Condition Monitoring (SCM) is SNH’s programme for monitoring the condition of nature conservation features of special interest on designated sites in Scotland. The monitoring determines whether the natural feature is likely to maintain itself in the medium to longer term under the current management regime and wider environmental or other influences. An important aspect of the SCM process involves inspecting the site for factors which have the capacity to impact upon the feature in a detrimental or positive way- these factors are termed ‘Pressures’ and can apply to both man-made and natural activities (SNH, 2015b). The first of SNH’s 8 Adaptation Principles is to ‘reduce other pressures on ecosystems, habitats and species’ (SNH, 2012). By managing those pressures that can be influenced by intervention, the impact from the additional unpreventable pressures due to climate change can potentially be reduced.

This indicator aims to examine the success of the management of these features by monitoring the proportion of Scotland’s notified habitat and species features which are in ‘positive condition’. The term ‘positive condition’ is used to include habitat and species features which have been assigned to one of four condition categories by SNH (SNH, 2015c):

• Favourable Maintained - the attribute targets set for the natural features have been met, and the natural feature is likely to be secure on the site under present conditions;
• Favourable Recovered - the condition of the natural feature has recovered from a previous unfavourable condition, and attribute targets are now being met;
• Unfavourable Recovering - one or more of the targets have not been met on the site, but it has begun to show, or is continuing to show, a trend towards favourable condition;
• Unfavourable Recovering due to Management (URDTM) – a temporary status for where remedial management has been put in place to address all the known causes of unfavourable condition until such time SCM assessment can verify the condition, or identifies further work which may be required to further improve condition.

The indicator also makes reference to the ‘favourable condition’ status utilised in official statistics of feature condition which also includes:

• Favourable Declining - the attribute targets set for the natural features have been met, but evidence suggests that condition will worsen unless remedial action is taken. The ‘declining’ terminology is used as a flag so that early action can be put into place to deal with the identified pressures (SNH, 2015f).

Related indicators:

NB12 Condition of key habitats: Proportion of notified habitats in unfavourable condition

NB13 Condition of key habitats: Area of modified deep peat soils

NB39 Freshwater habitats with reported presence of key invasive non-native species (INNS)

In addition, a ‘knowledge document’ (Climate change pressure on Scotland’s notified species) examines the knowledge that can currently be drawn from SCM data regarding the impact of climate change on notified species.

Since 2014, invasive species has taken over from over-grazing as the dominant pressure identified across all notified features on protected sites in Scotland (SNH, 2014). Whilst only a relatively small number of notified habitat and species features have had climate change specifically attributed as an identifiable pressure (47 in total), a large number of other pressures are potentially directly or indirectly influenced by climatic changes e.g. presence or changing extent of invasive species, plant pests and diseases, water availability and water quality.

During 2017/18, the condition of 72 features was seen to improve. These included 30 features which moved from Unfavourable to Unfavourable Recovering (DTM) due to work with land managers to address negative pressures (SNH, 2018). However, during the same period, 84 features deteriorated to unfavourable condition. Table 1 summarises the change in the condition of features during this period.

Amongst features categorised as Unfavourable, there are some where there are no identifiable pressures on or near the area itself. It is likely that for these features, factors outwith local management control are influencing feature condition (SNH, 2018). The majority of these features are sea bird populations where changes in prey distribution and abundance due to climate change and fishing activity are likely to be the main cause of declining populations (SNH, 2018)

Table 1 The change in condition of features⁷ 2017-18

Source: SNH (2018) NB ‘Favourable’ includes those assessed in unfavourable recovering condition

Site Condition Monitoring (SCM): A sample of the 5376 features (habitats, species and earth sciences) in Scotland are monitored for SCM on a six-year rolling programme, with the condition of 5295 having been assessed to date (SNH, 2018). This means not all features are visited and monitored every year, or every monitoring cycle.  The sample for each reporting cycle is determined using a risk based random sampling model. This means that where the threat to, or vulnerability of a feature type is deemed to be low, the period between condition assessments is longer (e.g. butterfly features are monitored once every six years - i.e. once per monitoring cycle, whereas woodlands are monitored once every 3rd cycle)

There is a small discrepancy between the number of features included for analysis for positive condition in comparison to the latest (2018) published statistics of ‘favourable condition’. This is due to a number of factors:

• The number of features included in SCM is not a settled figure and therefore snapshots of data may vary accordingly:
• Through the Nature Conservation (Scotland) Act, SNH have the power to add or remove features from SSSIs
• New Natura features are added from time to time
• Where features are earmarked for denotification they are removed from calculation of official statistics (as are features which have not yet been assessed)

Site condition monitoring:

http://www.snh.gov.uk/protecting-scotlands-nature/protected-areas/site-condition-monitoring/

Climate change impacts on Scotland’s natural environment:

http://www.snh.gov.uk/climate-change/impacts-in-scotland/

Case studies of progress towards favourable condition:

https://www.nature.scot/professional-advice/safeguarding-protected-areas-and-species/protected-areas/site-condition-monitoring/condition-target