Biodiversity and conservation
Healthy habitats, iconic species, rare plants and ancient monuments all contribute to a vital sense of place and belonging, whether they’re found on the doorstep of our cities or in the furthest reaches of our uplands. We are committed to ensuring the natural and cultural heritage on the land we manage is protected, conserved and enhanced.
Photo by Mark Hamblin © Forestry and Land Scotland
The scale of our national forests and land allows us to manage whole landscapes, restoring, enhancing and linking habitats. Its diversity means we look after a range of rare and threatened species and many significant historic assets. We protect and conserve priority habitats, tackle invasive species, monitor key species and record the historic environment. The way we manage our national forests and land also helps to reduce Scotland’s environmental footprint and mitigate the disruption caused by a changing climate.
Photo by Mark Hamblin © Forestry and Land Scotland
Our environment underpins everything we do, and we take an ecosystem approach to our stewardship of it. Scotland’s rich and diverse forests and woodland are important natural assets and their continuing health and improvement is vital to sustainable economic growth, not least because of their role in protecting, maintaining and enhancing natural capital and providing a range of ecosystem services.
We are committed to safeguarding our most special places, both large and small; undertaking sustainable land management in a way that benefits people and communities; enhancing biodiversity and ecosystem services through landscape-scale management; contributing to the Scottish Government’s climate change targets; and complementing and balancing the forestry and land management being undertaken by other land managers.
Learn about our work
The following pages describe our work and explore a number of detailed case studies.
Wildlife conservation
Learn about our work to help secure the futures of Scotland's iconic flora and fauna.
Habitat conservation
Learn how we manage a rich tapestry of diverse habitats to provide a home for a wide variety of wildlife.
Tackling the climate emergency
Scotland’s forest and land have a key role in helping to mitigate the impacts of climate change.
Historic environment conservation
Just as we care for the natural environment, we are responsible for looking after historic landscapes that contain many sites of archaeological interest.
Historic environment conservation