1. Why a focus on public funding for public goods?
Cross Party Group in the Scottish Parliament on Rural Policy
28th November 2018, Dynamic Earth, Edinburgh
Why a focus on public funding for public goods?
Davy McCracken
Head of SRUC’s Hill & Mountain Research Centre

2. Rewarding the delivery of public goods?
Need to be cost-effective and transparent
General support for farmers and other land managers?
Historic agri-environment
prescriptive approaches?
Outcome/Results
based approaches?
Combination of all three above?

3. Pressures on biodiversity: landscape simplification - uplands
Increasing:
Cuckoo (+108%)
Raven (+93%)
Snipe (+22%)
Declining
Curlew (-61%)
Dotterel (-60%)
Black Grouse (-53%)
Golden Plover (-43%)
Hooded Crow (-38%)

4. Water Quality
Detailed up-to-date data on individual rivers can be obtained at:

5. Water Quantity

6. Wider countryside: peatlands
Extent in uplands stable but some decreases in plant species richness and many emitting rather than sequestering carbon

7. Wider countryside: native woodlands (NWS 2014)
Further details can be obtained at:
This map of native woodland condition shows for different regions of Scotland the broad results of Forestry Commission’s survey carried out from for native woodlands (i.e. with >50% native species in the canopy). It combines four condition attributes: canopy cover, % of canopy comprising native species, herbivore impact, and invasive non-native species for all of Scotland, with 39.3 % of woodlands being in Satisfactory condition (Blue in the pie-charts), 46.1 % in Unsatisfactory condition (Orange), 3.7 % Nearly-native woodland (Grey) and 10.9 % Planted Ancient Woodland sites (PAWS in Purple).

8. What future for woodland and forestry in Scotland?

9. Range of public goods which hill farming & crofting has a role in providing:
Maintaining cultural heritage
Improving water quality
Maintaining landscapes for tourism
Maintaining safe access routes for hill walkers
Protecting carbon stocks in soil & vegetation
Reducing flood risk
Preventing and controlling wildfires
Maintaining habitats and wildlife species
Supporting wider Scottish economy
Increasing woodland cover
Supporting rural communities
Maintaining good quality food production
Ecosystem
Approach
Maintaining the land for future generations
Maintaining local employment opportunities

10. Rewarding the delivery of public goods in Scotland?:
Focus
Funding
Facilitation
Flexibility

11. 28th -29th November 2018

12. Innovation = Doing Things Differently
Biological
Sciences
Engineering
& Technology
Systems
& ecology
Knowledge
Transfer
For more detail see:

13. Acknowledgements
SRUC receives research funding from the Rural & Environment Science & Analytical Services Division of the Scottish Government through their and Strategic Research Programmes
Additional funders of research from 2016 onwards include:
The European Commission’s H2020 Research & Innovation Programme
Defra under the ERA-NET SusAn (Sustainable Animal Production) Programme
Global Food Security’s ‘Resilience of the UK Food System Programme’, with support from BBSRC, ESRC, NERC and Scottish Government.