Blogs

"ScottishForest" by www.rubenholthuijsen.nl is licensed under CC BY 2.0

The natural capital concept is gaining traction in political and economic discourses in Scotland. For instance, Scotland’s Economic Strategy deems natural capital enhancement and ensuring sustainability as fundamental to a healthy and resilient economy. Some months ago, the Scottish Government published a regional set of natural capital accounts. These accounts intend to reflect the contribution of nature to relevant economic sectors and industries in Scotland, such as agriculture, forestry, fishery, water, mining, oil and gas or renewable energy. These accounts also include the natural capital contribution to society achieved by removing air pollutants, providing recreational opportunities and mitigating climate change. In this blog, I use recent natural capital developments in Scotland to promote the relevance of making the distribution of natural capital ownership (e.g. soil, water, ecosystem, energy and mineral resources) and the benefits these assets provide more explicit in natural capital metrics.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog post are the views of the author, and not an official position of the institute or funder.

Bushtail possum, a native of Australia is now an invasive species in New Zealand. Credit: Brisbane City Council.

Invasive species are increasing worldwide, and with them so is our understanding of how they damage native ecosystems. Control of invasive species is therefore becoming increasingly important for society, but comes at a high cost. Understanding the value of avoiding damage by invasive species, and of public support for controlling them, is therefore important for invasive species management.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog post are the views of the author, and not an official position of the institute or funder.

Policy Listening Session

At the Start to Farm workshop hosted by farming Connect, the Newbie project put on a “Policy listening session”. The goal of the 1-hour session was to create a space for dialogue between policy makers (and policy influencers) and new entrant farmer constituencies. To create opportunities for new entrants to surface their policy-oriented concerns and allow for policy makers communicate what they see as key policy opportunities.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog post are the views of the author, and not an official position of the institute or funder.

I am a social researcher working on topics relating to agriculture. It is my job to ask questions, but one I have been asking myself a lot recently is, Am I an agritourist?

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog post are the views of the author, and not an official position of the institute or funder.

During the winter of 2015/16, the North East of Scotland faced the worst flooding in recent history. The ongoing Long-term implications of flooding¹ project that I’m co-leading focuses on the impacts on people and communities of flooding over a three-year period. We chose two case study areas in Aberdeenshire as the focus of the research: firstly, Garioch, as repeated flooding events have been experienced here in recent decades and, secondly, Ballater, as the 2015/16 flood event was the first high-magnitude flood to have affected the community in living memory. Our expectation was that because Ballater had no recent experience of flooding, individuals and the wider community would have struggled to cope before, during and after the flood event, whereas Garioch residents would be better equipped to cope with the emergency situation, due to frequent flood events in the past. I’ll tell you more about what we found later on.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog post are the views of the author, and not an official position of the institute or funder.

Certain risk events attract a lot of media coverage and this can have knock-on effects. Recent prime time TV coverage of the stricken cruise ship Viking Sky, battered by heavy seas with rescue helicopters circling overhead, will understandably have put some people off booking an arctic cruise for their next holiday! The Norwegian Tourist Board and the Cruise Line companies alike may experience some loss of visitors, revenues and perhaps falling stocks.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog post are the views of the author, and not an official position of the institute or funder.

Last month I had the privilege of contributing to The Scottish Parliament’s inaugural Citizens’ Jury held 29-31st March 2019, in the heart of our Parliament Building. Twenty-two citizens, randomly selected from across Scotland, came together to deliberate on the question, “How should funding and advice for land management be designed to help improve Scotland’s natural environment?” The Jury is designed to allow these citizens to question six sets of invited ‘experts’ about different dimensions of this question and come together to make recommendations to the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Parliamentary Committee. I was asked to speak, as one of the invited experts, about “Scotland’s Multiple Land-Uses: Objectives, Benefits and Trade-offs”. This was a challenging proposition given that the information had to be accessible to people of all backgrounds and delivered in less than ten minutes.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog post are the views of the author, and not an official position of the institute or funder.

Joshua Msika, the James Hutton Institute’s sustainability coordinator, posed the above question of those passing through to the canteen one lunchtime during climate week. He got a mix of yes/no answers and comments in response, and the question certainly stimulated debate that day. The obvious answer is “Yes,” not least because plenty of excellent science was conducted before the invention of the aeroplane in the early twentieth century. But the situation now is rather more complicated, and it’s not as though stopping flying is the only thing you can do to cut your carbon emissions and help reduce the threat from climate change. In this blog post, I look at all the reasons why stopping flying as a scientist is far from a trivial decision for us to make, and raise dietary change as an alternative.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog post are the views of the author, and not an official position of the institute or funder.

Analysis of big data is telling us more and more about the world, from the state of our health and the environment to global population trends. It also has potential to generate important insights about small places, informing how our local communities develop and grow. In Scotland, for example, powerful online tools provide data about our population, public services and areas of deprivation. However, according to participants in our recent workshops at the Scottish Rural Parliament, this potential is not being fully realised.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog post are the views of the author, and not an official position of the institute or funder.

During a recent seminar at the James Hutton Institute, Howard Frumkin - the head of the Wellcome Trust’s ‘Our Planet, Our Health’ initiative - caught my attention when he spoke of the ‘fierce urgency of now’ in describing the consequences of deteriorating planetary health. This phrase was taken from a speech Dr Martin Luther King gave in 1963, which called for ‘immediate, vigorous and positive action’ on civil rights. So, in this post, I ask: how should we academics and institutions working on issues relating to climate, ecological and human health be responding to this urgency?

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog post are the views of the author, and not an official position of the institute or funder.