Scotland's biodiversity strategy indicators

Scotland's Biodiversity Strategy  sets out the Scottish Government's commitment to conserve biodiversity. The strategy was published in 2004 and sets out a 25 year vision and framework for action. Its aim is "to conserve biodiversity for the health, enjoyment and wellbeing of the people of Scotland now and in the future".

How do we know if Scotland's Biodiversity Strategy is working?

Scottish Natural Heritage working with other government agencies (SEPA, Marine Scotland, Forestry Commission Scotland) produce a suite of indicators that chart changes in Scotland's biodiversity.

There are two groups of indicators:

State indicators measure changes in biodiversity at the species, habitat and ecosystem level. There are 16 of these, which have been selected to be representative of Scotland.

Engagement indicators monitor how people interact with biodiversity through awareness, engagement or activity.

The document Developing an Indicator Set  explains in detail how these indicators were produced.

Where can I see the indicators?

The indicators can be downloaded as pdf documents by following the links below.

And you can read about what we are doing to protect biodiversity in our pages on safeguarding biodiversity .

Scotland's biodiversity state indicators

This link will take you to the most up to date list of Scotland's biodiversity indicators.

Scotland's biodiversity engagement indicators

This link will take you to the five engagement indicators.