Report of Workshop on Natural Heritage Reporting

Held:

6th/7th March 2003

Location:

Edinburgh Conference Centre

Jointly Organised by:

Ed Mackey (Scottish Natural Heritage), Neil Bayfield (Centre for Ecology and Hydrology), Dick Birnie (The Macaulay Land Use Research Institute).

Background

This workshop was set within the context of existing UK programmes to monitor the state of the environment. In comparison with EU and other international monitoring programmes, these UK initiatives generally fail to capture adequate information on the processes driving environmental change and the management/policy responses to it. The recent SNH publication on Natural Heritage Trends Scotland (2001) has focussed attention on this commonly neglected aspect of environmental reporting. The potential for such useful information needs to be explored further, and specifically here in relation to its contribution to environmental reporting and how it can be made more relevant and effective by setting it within the Driving Forces, Pressures, State, Impacts, Responses (DPSIR) framework adopted for SoE Reporting elsewhere in Europe and internationally. There is also a need to establish mechanisms for prioritising indicators of change, and for identifying the most relevant indicators for different scales of Natural Heritage reporting.

Objectives

1. To draw on the experience of a wide range of environmental professionals to examine how the DPSIR framework has been applied to SoE Reporting and in the development of environmental indicators, particularly in relation to the European Environment Agency experience, and others including the OECD.
2. To develop a proposal for testing and applying the DPSIR framework to future natural heritage reporting and indicators development in Scotland.
3. To identify criteria for prioritising indicators of environmental change for a range of geographic scales from local to national.
4. To produce a preliminary checklist of the statistical power, resonance, cost effectiveness and other characteristics that are required of suitable indicators.

Anticipated Benefits

The workshop will provide recommendations to SNH as to how natural heritage reporting should be taken forward in the future:

• In relation to different user groups and functional scales
• What it should deliver (outputs)
• Who should be involved (contributors)
• Opportunities (e.g. for collaborative working and joint research)

Participants

The workshop was wholly funded by SNH and attendance was by invitation only. Invitees were selected on the basis of their organisations role in SoE reporting; their possible contributions to workshop discussions, and to their potential future involvement in natural heritage reporting in Scotland. Invitations were sent out to the following organisations: OECD, EEA ,UNEP-WCMC, JNCC, DEFRA, EA/CA, SE, SEPA, FC, RSPB, NTS, SWT, and relevant local government organisations.

Programme and Reports

Thursday 6th March 2003

1030

Tea/coffee on arrival & registration

1. Introduction

11.00- 11.15

Dick Birnie (Macaulay Land Use Research Institute, Aberdeen) Introduction to the workshop: aims and definitions 68,839 bytes.

2. Why do we do it?

1115-11.45

Ed Mackey (SNH, Edinburgh) Natural heritage reporting and indicators ( 2,689,458 bytes.): statutory requirements, corporate justification and user community needs.

What are the statutory requirements for reporting at different Natural Heritage functional scales, what corporate and other justifications have an influence? Who are the data users (internal and external) and how are their needs taken into account?

1145-1200

Discussion

1200-1245

Prof David Briggs (Imperial College, London) What environmental indicators can (and can't) do. Or nine lessons and no carol 1,656,571 bytes.

A provocative and challenging comparison of approaches, and critical review of issues. A review of the key environmental reports (e.g. OECD, EEA, UK, Scotland) to show who is doing what.

1245-1300

Discussion

1300-1400

Buffet lunch

3. What and where should be reported on?

1400-1415

Introduction to discussion breakout 326,497 bytes. Three groups work in parallel to discuss:

• Who is the target audience
• What should be the functional scales for NH reporting (local, national, by designation type or whatever)
• What are the requisite characteristics of effective indicators (check list of key characteristics)
• What is the role of the DPSIR framework (how do we see its usefulness)

1500-1530

Breakout rapporteurs sum-up

1530-1600

Tea

4. Prioritising indicators

1600- 1630

Neil Bayfield and Phillip Bacon (CEH, Banchory) Introduction to Decision workshop approach to prioritising indicators at different functional scales (local regional, national?) 326,497 bytes.

1630-1730

Groups discuss the proposed framework for prioritising indicators

1730-1800

Discussion of framework led by group rapporteurs

1830

Dinner

5. EEA Perspective

2000

Jock Martin (EEA, Copenhagen) Biodiversity and EEA. From monitoring to knowledge on Biodiversity in Europe. Some thoughts and challenges 990,442 bytes.

Friday 7th March 2003

Decision workshop: prioritising indicators

0900-1100

Groups discuss functional scale requirements then fill in individual rankings on a decision tree to identify perceived priorities

1100-1130

Coffee

1130-1230

Breakout rapporteurs sum-up priorities from the priorities workshops 250,822 bytes.

1230-1330

Lunch

Getting it right

1330-1430

Three parallel Breakout sessions each consider:

• What needs to be done?
• Working together
• Common research themes
• Common understanding of purpose

  This session will challenge each group to come up with a vision of what future NH reports for Scotland might look like. It will be informed by all the previous discussions and focus on what needs to be done, and by whom, to take the process forward. In effect, we will be developing an action plan for the next stage of NH reporting in Scotland.

1430-1515

Breakout rapporteurs sum-up what needs to be done to deliver effective reporting on the state of the natural heritage

1515-1545

Final discussion and summary

1545

Tea and depart