Scottish estates have vowed to continue driving forward an international wildlife and habitat accreditation scheme beyond the UK’s new relationship with Europe.
Wildlife Estates Scotland (WES), which builds information on species and land use in order to improve Scotland’s biodiversity, is based on a European scheme implemented in 19 countries across the continent.
WES is celebrating its 10th birthday this month and Scotland currently sits second in the league table of accredited land, with only Spain ahead on approximately 1.6 million acres. WES aims to double the accredited land to 2.5 million acres by 2023.
Robbie Douglas-Miller, who owns The Hopes Estate in East Lothian, has been closely involved in WES since its inception and believes the scheme is more vital than ever in helping Scotland’s wildlife to flourish.
Originally accredited in 2013, The Hopes comprises 4,200ac of land, primarily open hill and moorland.
Over the past five years the estate has been heavily involved in significant peatland restoration and woodland creation. In 2016, Hopes won the Golden Plover award celebrating the best sustainable upland management.
Robbie said:
“An accreditation scheme such as Wildlife Estates Scotland has never been so valuable given the loss of wildlife and habitat that we are seeing across the world.
We are celebrating 10 years of WES and during that time it has helped farms and estates take account of the effect their work has on wildlife.
“All too often we see farming, forestry or county sports labelled good or bad with regards to wildlife – the reality is far more complicated and each can produce great outcomes through sharing knowledge via a scheme such as WES.
Wildlife Estates is a European concept and it enjoys close cooperation with EU institutions.
“Over the past decade, WES has been built into a Scottish success story and the scheme will continue to reflect on the latest environmental developments from Europe as we work to increase the amount of land which is accredited.”
