What Does the Land Do for You?

NorthWest2045 Supported by SLR Consulting Ltd

Introduction

Who is the NorthWest2045?

NorthWest2045 (NW2045) is a ‘collective’ – a diverse group of individuals and different types of organisations who are working together to help their communities to thrive. They understand that the economy, people and the environment are all essential.

Working closely with the community, NW2045 developed a Vision of how we want the area to look by 2045. This includes six basic ideas:

  • Housing should be affordable for young people and families.
  • Everyone should have access to high-speed internet
  • There should be local services at a local hub
  • We should be producing more food for ourselves
  • The people who live on the land should have their say in land management
  • The people of the North West Highlands are as important as every other community, and we should have our voices heard.

Further detail can be found in the  NW2045 Vision .

What is the Regional Land Use Partnership?

NW2045 chose ‘2045’ because by 2045 the Scottish Government wants to have reached ‘Net Zero’ carbon emissions. Hitting this target will require a lot of change to how we live, and also to how we use the land around us.

The Scottish Government has established five Regional Land Use Partnership (RLUP) pilot areas, one of which is led by NW2045. The purpose of RLUPs is to encourage everyone who is affected by land use to work together, and to help us understand the changes we can make to how we live on, work on and experience the land. We hope this will help our communities to thrive; help keep the land healthy for future generations and help us make the transition to ‘Net Zero’ in a fair way.

Further detail about RLUPs can be found  Here .

What Is a Natural Capital Assessment and Why Have We Done One?

What is Natural Capital?

‘Natural Capital’ is a way of talking about nature – including soil, air, water, rocks, plants and animals - in a way that helps us understand how important nature is to people, society, and the economy.

What Are Ecosystem Services?

‘Ecosystem services’ are the jobs that nature – ‘Natural Capital’ - does (mostly free-of-charge!) which make our lives on this earth possible. For example: insects pollinate crops; soil grows food; plants clean the air; soils and plants store carbon which regulates the climate; and being surrounded by nature supports our mental and physical well-being. Ecosystem Services are divided into four categories: supporting, regulating, provisioning and cultural.

Examples of Ecosystem Services

Why Do A Natural Capital Assessment?

As part of the Regional Land Use Partnership work, we want to find out what Natural Capital we have in our area now, and what Ecosystem Services the Natural Capital provides, to start to answer the question: what does nature do for us? This is a Natural Capital Assessment. We hope this will help us understand the benefits nature brings us now, so we can begin to talk about how to make the most of nature in the future, as society makes changes towards the 2045 ‘Net Zero’ target. We hope this will help our communities thrive whilst keeping our environment healthy, and make sure changes happen in a fair way. SLR Consulting were contracted to carry out the technical elements of this complex study.

NW2045 Study Area

Method - How Did We Do It?

So far this has been a brief study - just a small step towards understanding our Natural Capital and what it means to us. It was not practical or necessary to collect new data for all our Natural Capital and Ecosystem Services. There are many sets of data that are publicly available online, such as habitat assessments, deer counts and satellite imagery. As well as the online data, we worked with the strong network of people and organisations who have been working in and studying this area for many years, who generously contributed information to this project.

First, we created a map showing our Natural Assets: the different habitats we have across the area.

Then, through the collaborative work of the NW2045 Natural Capital group, the Ecosystem Services to focus on in this initial research were identified. The selection process considered the NW2045 Vision priorities; SLR expertise; and the wider knowledge of the NW2045 Natural Capital group. These are carbon storage (a ‘regulating’ service) and biodiversity (a ‘supporting’ service). These were assessed using computer tools and models. ­ 

To make this work tangible and relevant to as many people as possible, we also wanted to assess the Ecosystem Services of food production (a ‘provisioning’ service) and education (a ‘cultural’ service). These are important ways that many people interact with the land in our area. However, food production and education are difficult to measure, so we focused on one Community Council area to trial a methodology (for more information see section Melness-Tongue-Skerray: A Focus on One Place).

Such a brief study of course has limitations. For instance, because the research was mostly desk-based, we hope to be able to ‘ground-truth’ it in the future. Also, we were not able to include the coastal and marine habitats, although we know they are so important in many ways. There are of course many Ecosystem Services that were not assessed in this phase of the work, such as clean water; aquaculture; timber; air pollution mitigation; pest control; flooding control; recreation; and tourism. There is scope to address these limitations in the future.

What is our Natural Capital?

The map shows a complex patchwork of different habitats (Natural Capital) across our area. The main habitats are heathland, bog and inland waters (72% of the area – this may not surprise you!). Grassland is also important, at 16% (mostly in the north of the area). We have little woodland – just 5% of the area (mostly along the western coastline and in the south of the area along the main road). This is a different story to the rest of Scotland, where on average 36% of the area is heathland and bog; 32% is grassland and 16% is woodland.

Explore the results of the Natural Asset mapping using the map - use the slider to compare the results to aerial photography.

Natural Assets

What Does our Natural Capital Do for Us?

This work focused on just two main Ecosystem Services: Carbon storage and Biodiversity.

Carbon

This was measured using a computer modelling tool which estimates the likely amount of carbon stored above ground (in plants) and below ground (in soil and peat). For example, blanket bog has as estimated storage of 576 tonnes/ha; grasslands approximately 30-150 tonnes/ha and woodlands 75-230 tonnes/ha. Bogs that are degraded (for instance, drained, burned or damaged by trampling animals) will contribute to carbon emissions, whereas peat that is being restored will contribute to carbon sequestration, or at least mitigate emissions. The study calculated that the NW2045 area contains approximately 68.7 million tonnes of carbon. The majority of this carbon is stored within bogs, with smaller amounts in heathland and grassland soils. This is a lot of carbon, and because of the urgent need to address climate change, carbon storage has a market value. There are interesting and challenging conversations and decisions ahead; read more about the methods used, and the implications of carbon markets, in the full Natural Capital Assessment report. . The map shows how the estimated carbon stores vary across the area. You can see how ‘carbon intense’ your area is - use the slider to compare the results to aerial photography.

Tonnes of Carbon Stored Per Hectare

Biodiversity

The importance of our habitats for biodiversity – the basis of Ecosystem Services - was modelled by assessing how ‘distinctive’ the habitats are (ie how different it is from other habitats) and whether the habitat is in a good condition. This was combined to give a score from 0 – 24 for each patch of habitat. The exercise used data from NatureScot monitoring of ‘designated sites’ (ie Sites of Special Scientific Interest – see the Data Explorer below for more information). Deer density data was also used where possible, because grazing by deer has a negative impact on biodiversity. The condition of the habitat scored lower when there are more than seven deer per square kilometre (or five deer / km2 in woodlands). Most of the habitats scored toward the upper end of the range, with almost half being over 17 units/ha. This shows that the bog, mire and alpine habitats which dominate this area are valuable for biodiversity, which supports all the other ecosystem services. You can read more detail about the method and results in the full Natural Capital Assessment report. Explore the results of the biodiversity mapping using the map - use the slider to compare the results to aerial photography.

Biodiveristy Score - Higher scores respresent higher biodiversity value

Data Explorer

Use the below map to explore all outputs produced as part of the project.

Wider Involvement In The Process

We made efforts during the limited study period to talk to people about the work and ask them to share their knowledge and ideas about this subject.

We held an online meeting in late June which was attended by over 30 people from across the area. It was particularly valuable in showing us just how difficult it is to talk about Natural Capital and Ecosystem Services, and we have learnt a lot from that experience.

In July and August we hosted events at the Durness and Assynt Games. A huge variety of folk, from toddlers upwards, took part in creative activities and lively discussions about what the land means to them.

The fundamental connection between our community capital and our natural capital is the common ground of the NW2045 area: we heard this in all the words and wishes expressed in the tents: that we all want to steward this place with care while increasing our critical knowledge and capacity, from the grass roots up.    Read more about the Durness event here. 

Melness-Tongue-Skerray: A Focus on One Place

As well as carbon storage and biodiversity, we wanted to assess some more tangible’ Ecosystem Services: things that nature does for us here that we experience directly, daily. We chose food production and ‘education’ (ie increasingly our local knowledge, or supporting nature-based tourism experiences). Unfortunately, these are very difficult things to measure, and it was not possible to do so across the whole area in such a short time. Instead, we chose to focus on one area and try out a new method of measuring these Ecosystem Services. We focused at the Community Council (CC) level, because CCs are an important forum for democratic decision-making. We chose the Melness, Tongue and Skerray (MTS) CC area because of its interesting range of land use: common grazing, tourism (eg NC500), different land ownership and tenure, and developments such as the Sutherland Spaceport. Eleven members of the MTS ‘community leaders’ group responded to a questionnaire about what land means to them. Food production and recreation were mentioned frequently, and inspiration was a common theme: a return to sanity; a belief in a higher power; a sense of place; and good mental health. The need for more affordable housing, sustainable energy, income from carbon storage, and food production were all considered priorities. The Spaceport was referred to as an example of encouraging new industries and job opportunities. The Grazings Clerks also provided information about land use, which are shown on the map in the full Natural Capital Assessment report. This method yielded much useful information and connection – learning with, and from, those on the ground about how this approach may work. Focusing on one specific area like this is called a ‘place-based approach’, and we see this as important to meaningful community-based research. 

Next Steps / What Does this Mean to Us?

A fundamental part of this work is answering the question: what does this work – what does Natural Capital - mean to all of us who live here? 

Essentially, how the land (and sea) is used affects us all, directly and indirectly. The Scottish Government has agreed that we should all have a say in the future of our land: as enshrined in the  Land Rights and Responsibilities Statement of the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2016 .

We need to start having conversations to work out what we want our Natural Capital to do for us as a society. We want to find out we value most about our land, and why, and how we can take care of it in the long term to ensure that it helps our communities to thrive, whilst remaining healthy so that it can support many future generations.

This substantial piece of initial research gives us NW2045 area specific information we otherwise wouldn’t have.

We will learn more about how this information can support discussion and evidence-based decision making on land use futures. This will also inform what and how we may expand our natural capital research in the future to other Ecosystem Services and involve even more communities, landowners and land managers to help make better evidence-based decisions about how we use our land in the future.

Importantly, we want to hear from YOU about the next steps you would like to take.

We hope this work – and the information and maps it produced - will help us start to have those challenging but fascinating and crucial conversations.

Contact Us

We are so grateful to all those who have been involved in this work so far, and we look forward to much more collaboration in the future.

NorthWest2045

SLR Consulting Ltd

Examples of Ecosystem Services