Scottish Environment Minister Paul Wheelhouse launched an ambitious plan to restore Scotland's environment on Wednesday (19 June).

The 2020 Challenge for Scotland's Biodiversity aims to:

• To protect and restore biodiversity on land and in the seas, and to support healthier ecosystems
• Connect people with the natural world, for their health and wellbeing and to involve them more in decisions about their environment
• Maximise the benefits for Scotland and of a diverse natural environment and the services it provides, contributing to a sustainable economic growth.

Using a visit to Jupiter Urban Wildlife Centre in Grangemouth to launch the new scheme, Mr Wheelhouse said immediate action to preserve plant and animal life is imperative. He added "Scotland is home to over 90,000 species and the natural environment plays an important role in our wellbeing, our identity and our economy.

"Nature lies at the very heart of what makes Scotland such a special place to live and work and that's why we're committed to halting biodiversity loss. If we lose our wildlife or key habitats we are poorer in every sense of the word.”

He highlighted recent reports, such as the State of Nature report, produced by 25 UK wildlife organisations and launched by Sir David Attenborough in late May, which showed the extent to which species and habitats are under threat in the UK. http://www.rspb.org.uk/ourwork/science/stateofnature/index.aspx

The 2020 Challenge launched on Wednesday will attempt to meet biodiversity targets set by the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity and the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2020, through creating a national strategy to preserve and enhance the country's biodiversity.

Giving details on areas of focus for Challenge 2020, Mr Wheelhouse added, "Peatland soils of Scotland are estimated to store ten times more carbon than in all of the UK's trees and we will be undertaking a major programme of peatland conservation, management and restoration to conserve wildlife and improve capacity for storing carbon.

"Clear advice to land managers and support for 'High Nature Value' farming and forestry will also help wildlife in the wider countryside, and by supporting communities to improve their local environments we can help biodiversity and improve the quality of life for people across Scotland."

Jonathan Hughes, Director of Conservation at the Scottish Wildlife Trust, welcomed the Scottish Government's new scheme on Wendesday. He said, "As with most countries around the world, Scotland's environment will face enormous pressures in the 21st century and to deal with these we need to restore nature at a bigger scale than ever before.

"By taking a so called 'ecosystem approach' where we plan and care for the environment at a landscape scale, not just in small isolated pockets, we may finally begin to halt the relentless decline in Scotland's species and habitats. The Scottish Government clearly recognise this in the strategy and should be commended for their forward thinking approach."

The environment minister said the new strategy will seek to protect biodiversity for its own sake, but added that a healthy environment would also provide benefit to the Scottish population; he emphasized that the natural environment is worth over £21.5 billion to the Scottish economy and that farmers benefit form insect pollination services to the tune of £43m per year in Scotland alone.

However, although the Scottish government has committed itself to protecting biodiversity, and has involved more people and organisations through this new project, in his latest book Feral, released in late May, author and campaigner George Monbiot claims that efforts to conserve or enhance biodiversity in Scotland's uplands have been hampered by the enclosure of land into large estates, owned by a small number of (often absent) landlords, and preserved for the purposes of deerstalking or grouse shooting, which have significant ecological impacts.

Ten years ago, 69 percent of UK land was estimated to be controlled by 0.6 percent of the population. Since then, land ownership will only have been concentrated into fewer hands. The power of the conservative landowners' lobby has led to rising concern over access to land for young people and environmental protection in recent years across the UK as a whole.