Latest Briefing in Food, health and wellbeing for 2011

High Nature Value Farming Indicators established for Scotland

A previous Knowledge Scotland Research Briefing (Identifying And Supporting High Nature Value Farming Systems, May 2009) has provided a background to the development of the European High Nature Value (HNV) farming systems concept. That Briefing highlighted that there was a requirement (set by the European Commission) to establish a baseline of the extent of HNV farming systems occurring in Scotland and to develop mechanisms to track trends in that HNV farming system resource within the life-span of the 2007-2013 Scottish Rural Development Programme (SRDP). Although not a focus of that briefing, there was also a requirement to establish a similar baseline and track trends in Scotland’s HNV forestry system resource.

To achieve this, the Scottish Government established a small High Nature Value Farming and Forestry Indicators Technical Working Group, comprising Scottish Government analysts, scientists and policy advisor together with representation from Forestry Commission Scotland, RSPB Scotland, SAC and Scottish Natural Heritage. The remit of the group was “To assess the feasibility of producing HNV indicators for Scotland by exploring data availability and associated methodological issues”. The findings of the Group were recently published on the Scottish Government’s website.

Published on 17 October 2011 in Ecosystems and biodiversity , Food, health and wellbeing

Briefings in Food, health and wellbeing for 2011