Update from the Programme Manager

Hello! I’m Fiona Strachan, the Programme Manager for Species on the Edge, and welcome to my first programme update!

Species on the Edge has been up and running since early 2023 and after a busy survey season now feels like a great time to be bringing you up to date with what we've been up to so far, and what there is to look forward to coming up.

The programme celebrated its official launch at the start of June and activity has firmly kicked off in all our seven project areas. Our team, spread all across the country, have been out and about over the summer delivering our first survey season and meeting many of you at various shows and events.

Already we’re excited to have found some of our species in areas where they haven’t been recorded for years, or, in the case of the short-necked oil beetle, places where they have never been recorded! As we get stuck in with our monitoring and surveying programme, we are beginning to understand more about our species across our project areas.

At the start of October, we had our first Species on the Edge Team Event and I can’t tell you how nice it was to meet our team in person after almost a year of online meetings. We started the event with an update from our Project Officers and People Engagement Officers from each of the seven Species on the Edge project areas. You can read these updates in their own blog post [link to area team updates blog], so without stealing their thunder I’ll just say that I was blown away by how much they’ve achieved already, and by their enthusiasm and dedication. We also heard from some really inspiring speakers about Nature Connection, current developments in farming in Scotland, the Better Biodiversity Data project, our Welsh sister project Natur am Byth, and the importance of species for nature conservation.

There is no doubt that these are challenging times for nature and biodiversity. The recent ‘State of Nature Scotland’ report only makes this clearer, presenting evidence that one in nine species assessed are in danger of extinction in Scotland. Species on the Edge is not only taking action to secure a future for some of our most threatened and often least well understood species, it is also connecting people and building interest in conservation and understanding of why it’s important. We can’t do this without your help. As the programme progresses there will be a huge variety of different ways to get involved; I really hope that everyone reading can find something to appeal to them. Nature does so much for us, and there is so much we can do for it. One of my favourite comments from our national launch event back in June was ‘It’s just so nice to go to something positive – you’re all working together and you’re getting things done’. So please, join us and help get things done for Species on the Edge!