The Scottish Government

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CHAPTER FOUR RESULTS OF REVIEW

4.1 The Millennium Report stated that the SBG had "out-performed original expectations", and that progress has been achieved across a wide front.

4.2 The following sections of this report examine these results more closely, asking about the actual effects of its work. What has the SBG achieved? Is the SBG working effectively and strategically as a group? Has the SBG succeeded in bringing biodiversity to centre-stage in Scotland?

4.3 The results of the consultations have been distilled and combined with evidence from the literature to provide the following assessment. They are summarised against the Scottish Biodiversity Targets 2001 list as developed during this research.

Policy framework

TARGET 1: View Scotland's biodiversity as a measure of sustainable development

4.4 Biodiversity has become more significant within sustainable development policies in Scotland over the last five years. However, it appears that at a strategic level, biodiversity is not yet central to policy development in Scotland. This was thought to be partly a result of the recent drive towards improvements in other key components of policy (particularly waste, energy and transport) such that these areas would become more sustainable, which had resulted in a focus on mechanisms to achieve this. Many consultees suggested that there was now a case to return to the broader definition of sustainability (the long term balance of communities, economics and environment), and to include biodiversity as a measure of sustainability. This was particularly important given the 'twinning' of the two international conventions driving sustainable development: Climate Change and Biodiversity, which together guide environmental policies across Europe.

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