Large scale habitat restoration
Restoring habitats on a large scale has the potential to improve the health of our ecosystems in a big way. Large-scale habitat restoration can be costly, but by re-establishing ecological processes and ecosystem services this approach can deliver benefits for people and wildlife that significantly outweigh the costs:
- The Scottish Government sets out its commitment in the second National Planning Framework
to develop a National Ecological Network with the potential to encompass large strategic habitat restoration projects.
- The Land Use Strategy makes a strong reference to the importance of large scale habitat restoration as a necessary part of responding to climate change.
The Land Use Strategy highlights the role of peatlands as the largest land-based store of carbon. In December 2010 the Scottish Government published an overview of current action to care for carbon in peatlands. Over 10,000 hectares of peatland have been restored but more work is needed.
There is progress on other large scale restoration projects. One of the best known of these is at Loch Katrine in the Trossachs where Forestry Commission Scotland is managing the largest landscape scale habitat and native woodland expansion project in the UK.
The Assynt Coigach Living Landscape aims to deliver environmental and social benefits in the area north of Ullapool in the North West Highlands. Issue 38 
of the Forum Newsletter highlights this project.
There are several other initiatives promoting large scale habitat restoration in the UK.
- Royal Society for the Protection of Birds- Futurescapes ;
- Wildlife Trusts - Living Landscapes .