Spotlight on natural capital approaches to support sustainable land management in Scotland

“Participants will be able to benefit by learning from the suite of existing pilots, making further adoption of natural capital approaches in our land-based sector more effective. It is the next in the ESCom series of events that aim to support and encourage collaboration between practitioners, policy makers and scientists”

How can we use the Natural Capital Protocol (NCP) to help land managers when considering agricultural land use decisions? How can the NCP contribute to ongoing initiatives to test natural capital approaches in land-based business in Scotland?

These questions, and many others, will be at the centre of discussions during an upcoming online event titled “Using Natural Capital Approaches to support sustainable land management in Scotland: insights from recent pilots”, hosted by the University of Edinburgh and the James Hutton Institute.

The free event will take place on 3^rd December (12:30 to 2:30 pm) and will feature talks by Scottish Government experts Ross Johnston and Peter Phillips and academic experts Jasmine Hussain (University of Edinburgh) as well as Paola Ovando Pol (James Hutton Institute). It will be facilitated by Marc Metzger and Kirsty Blackstock.

There will be further flash presentations from natural capital pilots including:

• NatureScot Corporate Natural Capital Accounts (Tom McKenna – video) 
• AECOM Natural Capital Laboratory (Chris White) 
• MacRobert Trust Natural Capital Accounts (Simon Power) 
• Hutton Glensaugh Natural Capital Protocol pilot (Paola Ovando Pol) 
• Forestry Commission Natural Capital Protocol pilot (Pat Snowdon) 

Dr Kirsty Blackstock, of the Institute’s Social, Economic and Geographical Sciences department, commented: “This is a very relevant event because of the centrality of investing in natural capital as part of Scotland’s green recovery.

“Participants will be able to benefit by learning from the suite of existing pilots, making further adoption of natural capital approaches in our land-based sector more effective. It is the next in the Ecosystem Scotland Community of Practice (ESCom) series of events that aim to support and encourage collaboration between practitioners, policy makers and scientists.”

To register, email Marc Metzger at marc.metzger@ed.ac.uk.

For more information about the Natural Capital Protocol, visit the Natural Capital Coalition website. For more information about ESCom, visit the ESCom website.