This page is the beginnings of a portal for Scotland community action in response to Ecological emergency. See Ecological restoration UK and Ecological restoration for topic overview.
  • These Scottish villagers bought a nature reserve - now they are fundraising to double its size, euronews.com (Jun 10, 2022)

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Topic articles[edit | edit source]

Community action projects[edit | edit source]

Ecosystem restoration[edit | edit source]

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  • “If we design well, we design for shared aliveness”. Speaking from China, John Thackara lays out an economy defined by care, The Daily Alternative (Jul 28, 2023)
  • Standing up and saying NO to erasing our environmental heritage. Stopping land encroachment., medium.com (May 09, 2023)
  • Indigenous Peoples defend a precious natural resource- empowering them protects us all, ashden.org (Feb 14, 2023)

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Ecosystem restoration is the process of halting and overturning degradation, resulting in cleaner air and water, extreme weather mitigation, better human health, and recovered biodiversity, including improved pollination of plants. Restoration encompasses a wide continuum of practices, from reforestation to re-wetting peatlands and coral rehabilitation.[1]

Citizen Science[edit | edit source]

Citizen Science refers to the involvement, participation and engagement of citizens in local or online (global) scientific work relevant to the citizens' interests, usually as a hobby, often as a passion.

Biodiversity[edit | edit source]

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2019 Highlights, Aigas Field Centre
Authors: AigasFieldCentre, Aug 26, 2019


Aigas Field Centre is a nature centre based at the home of naturalist and author Sir John Lister-Kaye, House of Aigas. The centre was opened in 1977 by ecologist Sir Frank Fraser Darling, and provides nature-based holidays for adults and environmental education services for school children. It is located at Aigas, next to the River Beauly, 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) west of Beauly and 20 kilometres (12 mi) west of Inverness, in the Scottish Highlands.

House of Aigas, once a Victorian sporting estate, was owned by the Gordon-Oswalds, who added the Victorian extensions to what was an 18th-century Tacksman's house. The house was then owned by Inverness County Council as an old people's home, before Lister-Kaye persuaded them to sell it to him.

Aigas began a beaver demonstration project in 2006. Two Eurasian beavers were released into a 200-acre enclosure, which includes a loch and surrounding woodland. The beavers have since built lodges and had a number of kits.

Aigas was host to a series of the BBC's live-action nature documentary, Autumnwatch in October 2012 and Winterwatch in January 2013.

House of Aigas and Field Centre's charitable arm, The Aigas Trust for Environmental Education, hosts over 5,000 school children a year.

Trees, woodland and forest[edit | edit source]

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Reforesting Scotland is a membership organisation concerned with the ecological and social regeneration of Scotland. It aims to significantly increase the forested areas of the country.

Reforesting Scotland

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Glen Finglas – 25 years on
Authors: The Woodland Trust, Aug 31, 2021

Wetlands[edit | edit source]

Cairngorms Cranes, scotlandbigpicture.com

Video[edit | edit source]

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Langholm Moor 2nd Stage Community Buy Out Campaign
Authors: Tarras Valley Nature Reserve, Oct 27, 2021

News and comment[edit | edit source]

2021

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Argaty Beaver Release
Authors: SCOTLAND: The Big Picture, Dec 3, 2021

Coastal saltmarsh 'engineered' to fight climate change, Nov 11[2]

Vast area of Scottish Highlands to be rewilded in ambitious 30-year project, Sep 24..[3].Rewilding Scotland

Ecological emergency[edit | edit source]

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Biodiversity loss risks 'ecological meltdown' warn scientists (UK/Global) - BBC News - 10 Oct. 2021
Authors: Mark 1333, Oct 10, 2021
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There is consensus in the scientific community that the current environmental degradation and destruction of many of Earth's biota are taking place on a "catastrophically short timescale". Scientists estimate that the current species extinction rate, or the rate of the Holocene extinction, is 1,000 to 10,000 times higher than the normal, background rate. Habitat loss is the leading cause of both species extinctions and ecosystem service decline. Two methods have been identified to slow the rate of species extinction and ecosystem service decline, they are the conservation of currently viable habitat and the restoration of degraded habitat. The commercial applications of ecological restoration have increased exponentially in recent years. In 2019, the United Nations General Assembly declared 2021–2030 the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. W

UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration[edit | edit source]

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  • Green Deal: pioneering proposals to restore Europe's nature by 2050 and halve pesticide use by 2030, ec.europa.eu (Jun 22, 2022)

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The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030 is a rallying call for the protection and revival of ecosystems all around the world, for the benefit of people and nature. It aims to halt the degradation of ecosystems and restore them to achieve global goals. The United Nations General Assembly has proclaimed the UN Decade and it is led by the United Nations Environment Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The UN Decade is building a strong, broad-based global movement to ramp up restoration and put the world on track for a sustainable future. That will include building political momentum for restoration as well as thousands of initiatives on the ground.[4]

The decade was conceived as a means of highlighting the need for greatly increased global cooperation to restore degraded and destroyed ecosystems, contributing to efforts to combat climate change and safeguard biodiversity, food security, and water supply. W

See also[edit | edit source]

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References[edit | edit source]

  1. Press release, unep.org
  2. BBC News
  3. theguardian.com
  4. Press release, unep.org

Discussion[View | Edit]

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