Restoring the Scottish Uplands: Ensuring the Carbon Maket Delivers Maximum Carbon Benefit

by Helen Armstrong, Andy Wightman (Introduction)

Much of the 70% of Scotland’s land area that is classed as upland is ecologically degraded. Restoration of this land is urgently needed to help tackle both the climate
and biodiversity emergencies and to provide resilience to future change. Scotland’s degraded uplands have huge potential to capture and store carbon through changes
in land management. Carbon stored in this way is in demand by organisations that want to use it to offset their carbon emissions. As such, private investment in
the production of stored carbon has been proposed as a mechanism to incentivise, and fund, nature restoration at scale. This voluntary carbon market has, indeed, driven an increase in private investment in managing land in the Scottish uplands for carbon storage. It is not, however, encouraging nature restoration in the Scottish uplands at the pace and scale that is needed nor is the traded carbon always being used appropriately. Furthermore, the carbon market is not always providing the wider environmental, social and financial benefits to the public that nature restoration has the potential to provide.

This paper recommends eighteen specific actions that need to be taken to ensure that the Scottish carbon market contributes effectively to tackling climate change whilst delivering nature restoration in the Scottish uplands at the scale, and pace, that is required and in a way that maximises the wider benefits to the people of Scotland.

30 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2024

About the author

Dr. Helen Armstrong is an ecological consultant specialising in sustainable land management. After completing a B.Sc. degree at the University of Edinburgh in ecological science she spent five years in Australia studying for a Ph.D. in ecosystem dynamics. On returning to Scotland she worked for the nature Conservancy Council providing advice on sustainable upland grazing before moving to the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute where she developed a computer model to help with setting sustainable sheep stocking rates on upland moorland. She then joined the uplands team at Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), providing advice and commissioning research on upland land management, particularly the management of domestic stock and deer. After six years at SNH she moved to Forest Research where she spent the next twelve years carrying out research, and providing advice, on the impacts, and management, of deer and domestic stock in woodlands. In 2012 she became a self-employed consultant. She has written numerous articles on aspects of the sustainable management of the Scottish uplands.