
Biodiversity - what can you do?
Discover how you can help to enhance biodiversity in your daily life, whether you’re at home, work or school.
Discover how you can help to enhance biodiversity in your daily life, whether you’re at home, work or school.
There are lots of things you can do to help biodiversity and there’s so much you can gain by getting out and enjoying our great outdoors. You can record what wildlife you see, help create wildlife habitats and encourage other people to help out too. If you scroll down we also have specific information and ideas for land managers, businesses, policy makers, public bodies, teachers and community groups.
Biodiversity video - what you can do to help nature
Much of Scotland’s biodiversity is found in and around farmland, forests or on sporting estates. How you use that land can make a huge difference. Find out how you can get funding to help biodiversity and read advice on managing different types of land.
Find out how you can help manage our coasts and seas to preserve their biodiversity, and read more about invasive non-native species if you're a boat or ship user. If you're just at the sea to enjoy its beauty and wildlife, we can all minimise our impacts through following the Scottish Marine Wildlife Watching Code. You can help to create a better environment for marine species through joining a litter monitoring or reduction scheme such as Beachwatch.
If you’re a teacher, consider how you can engage your students in a biodiversity project. Find out more about education and nature, including free resources, the learning in local greenspace project and some great case studies on how to best do teaching in nature. Many citizen science projects are suitable for both younger and older children and can be a really fun way to learn outside.
Scotland’s outstanding natural environment can be an incentive to attract business, and helping employees and the public enjoy biodiversity will add value to the workplace and increase well-being. Making biodiversity part of your day-to-day activities don't have to be costly, and it's a good idea to make a long-term biodiversity plan for your business. If you have some outdoor space, consider setting up a wildlife garden and let your grounds become 'untidy' for the benefit of wildflowers, birds and pollinators.
Even without outdoor space, there are plenty of quick and easy ways your organisation can help conserve biodiversity:
Scotland’s National Outcome for the environment says that we need to recognise our duty to protect and enhance these assets as essential to our economy, culture, way of life and the well-being of future generations.
Incorporating biodiversity thinking into policy is a ‘win–win’ situation: biodiversity can benefit from policy and policy can benefit from biodiversity. Read "What nature can do for you" by DEFRA, a report on making the most of natural services, assets and resources in policy- and decision-making, or discover the biodiversity policies most relevant to policy-makers.
All public bodies have a duty to further the conservation of biodiversity when carrying out their varied functions and day-to-day activities, and this Biodiversity Duty also applies to the staff of those public bodies. All public bodies also have a duty to report on their actions, once every three years. Whether your organisation is involved directly with green spaces or has only a small office space, there is lots you can do to help so it's a good idea to create a biodiversity plan.
If you share a space with other people or are a part of a group that meet regularly, think about working together for nature! Find out more about how communities can help the local environment, and the support available. Already having a group of people that work well together is the perfect starting point for supporting and improving local biodiversity.