NEW national parks and millions of extra trees are on the Liberal Democrats’ wish list as the party sets out its plans to draw up a new nature recovery law.
The party is bringing forward the proposals in a bid to protect Scotland’s natural habitats for future generations to enjoy.
The new law would see binding national recovery targets and led to more investment in nature through plans including the planting of 36 million extra trees each year across Scotland.
The Lib Dems also want to establish new national parks, which they saw will also boost rural employment.
The party’s manifesto will propose a nature recovery law to set legal targets across government to clean up air, soils, eases and rivers.
READ MORE: Greens’ attempt to declare nature emergency at Holyrood fails
Public support appears to be behind large-scale restoration of nature with a study by the Scottish Rewilding Alliance showing more than three quarters support the strategy to the point it can care for itself, with just 7% opposed to it.
The Lib Dem pledges include protecting and restoring carbon-rich habitats while phasing out harmful practices, expanding woodland using at least 50% native species and increasing Scotland’s forest cover by an extra 36 million trees every year.
The party also wants to set a national target for 30% of all publicly-owned land to be used for rewilding, including land owned by Forestry and Land Scotland, Crown Estate Scotland and Scottish Water.
Plans have also been drawn up to develop a formal strategy for Scotland’s wild land areas.
READ MORE: Public hugely in favour of rewilding Scotland
In November, a bid by MSPs for Holyrood to declare a nature emergency was rejected – with the SNP instead calling for “the continued treatment of climate change and biodiversity loss on a twin-crises basis”.
Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, Willie Rennie said: “Scottish Liberal Democrats will put recovery first. If elected as government, we would declare a nature emergency on day one.
"Because almost half of species in Scotland are in decline. Experts say around one million animal and plant species are at risk of extinction.”
He added: “I want future generations of Scots to enjoy our woodlands, our national parks and our beautiful landscapes. Taking action now to stop the nature crisis is our duty.
“As a sign of our ambition we are proposing plans that would see seven native trees planted for every person in Scotland, every year.
"The SNP are consumed with creating more divisions by pursuing independence when instead they should be focussing on the recovery and protecting Scotland's natural environment."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel