School of Biodiversity, One Health & Veterinary Medicine

Policy Impacts

The Scottish Government’s Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill, introduced on 19^th February 2025, passed on 29^th January 2026 and is now awaiting Royal Assent. This pioneering environmental legislation requires the Scottish Government to set targets to improve biodiversity and national parks to help restore and regenerate biodiversity, provides increased powers for deer management, and strengthens protection of marine and wetland habitats. Also, Scotland will become the first country in the UK to make the inclusion of special nesting bricks for swifts mandatory in new buildings; swifts have declined by 70% in the UK since 1995, partly due to loss of nest sites.

The most controversial part of the original Bill, which would have given the Scottish Government considerable power to make and change laws relating to Environmental Impact Assessments and the Habitat Regulations, was dropped entirely following strong objections to such sweeping powers.

Over 300 amendments to the bill were tabled, but most were rejected. Pat Monaghan, together with colleagues Des Thompson, Ian Wall and Daria Tuthar, have been advocating strongly over the past two years for change in forestry practice following their leading role in the Royal Society of Edinburgh Report calling for a radical rethink of tree planting in Scotland.

A forestry  amendment to the Bill was accepted, thanks to support from a number of MSPs, notably Mercedes Villalba. This amendment creates new regulatory powers in relation to sustainable forest management, explicitly stated in the parliamentary debate to be inspired by the RSE report. Fingers crossed that this leads to forestry in Scotland being better for both biodiversity and carbon sequestration!

Public Outreach

Over the past year, a number of colleagues have been active in producing online material to inform the public and encourage debate with respect to key environmental issues in Scotland. This includes the following, produced by the Royal Society of Edinburgh:

The state of Scotland’s fresh waters (by Neil Metcalfe)

The nature crisis will persist unless we tackle the climate-nature emergency with the urgency it deserves (by Pat Monaghan and Des Thompson)

Land use change and restoring nature (by Pat Monaghan with Annie Tindley, Newcastle University)

Meanwhile an article written by James Curran, Sinead Collins and Neil Metcalfe on Why Scotland needs to do better on environmental protection featured in Holyrood, the Scottish political and current affairs magazine. In a different context, Neil also featured in a Fisheries Management Scotland educational video on catch-and-release angling that emphasised the long-term harmful effects of exposing captured salmon to air.

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Professor Pat Monaghan

Professor Neil Metcalfe

Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill

Environmental Parliamentary Debate

First published: 26 February 2026