Scottish Government appointed ABPmer to complete the Strategic Environmental Assessment for its Marine and Coastal Restoration Plan

The Scottish Biodiversity Strategy (SBS) sets out the vision for Scotland to achieve ambitious and urgent commitments to halt and reverse biodiversity decline and become Nature Positive by 2030, and to have restored and regenerated biodiversity across the country by 2045.

The SBS delivery plan sets out an action to 'Publish a plan for marine and coastal ecosystem restoration, including identifying actions to help prioritise habitats and locations suitable for restoration.' In response to this, The Scottish Government’s Marine Directorate is developing the Marine and Coastal Restoration Plan.

Draft Marine and Coastal Restoration Plan

The Plan will provide an opportunity to identify and better understand restoration potential in Scottish waters, both in terms of environmental and socio-economic benefits. It will identify actions needed to achieve its aims and consider delivery of these actions beyond 2025.

The draft Plan is structured into five themes, each of which tackles a different aspect of what is needed to accelerate restoration in Scotland’s coast and waters:

1. Restoration opportunities and priorities
2. Regulatory environment
3. Funding and finance
4. Supply chain and communities
5. Evidence and monitoring

The Plan aims to:

• Achieve a better understanding of where active restoration can best take place, and how we can prioritise species and habitats
• Maximise ecological benefits and social and economic opportunities from active restoration
• Support community-led restoration and enable investment in restoration efforts

Understanding environmental effects of the Plan

The Environmental Assessment (Scotland) Act 2005 requires Scottish public bodies to undertake a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) when preparing plans likely to have significant environmental effects.

Scottish Government commissioned ABPmer to undertake an SEA of overall plans and policies for the delivery of the Marine and Coastal Restoration Plan.

Our SEA was undertaken as a high-level assessment of the potential environmental effects that are likely to result from the Marine and Coastal Restoration Plan. It considered the individual and overall (cumulative) potential effects of the policy on the following:

• Biodiversity, flora and fauna
• Soil
• Water
• Climatic factors
• Cultural heritage
• Landscape / seascape
• Population and human health
• Material assets

The Assessment found that the positive environmental effects of enhanced ecosystem restoration and regeneration with accompanied wellbeing benefits resulting from the Plan are anticipated to be greater than the potential negative effects related to the risk of accidental introduction of Invasive Non Native Species (INNS), displacement of activities and modifications to material assets through its implementation.

In terms of cumulative effects of the Plan as a whole, the positive environmental effects would be additive, should the objectives and underpinning actions across all five themes of the Plan be implemented.

Given the interdependencies between themes, should themes (and associated objectives and actions) be excluded from the Plan, there are likely to still be positive environmental effects, but these would be lower.

Restoration projects are currently being undertaken in the absence of the Plan, contributing to biodiversity enhancement and recovery in Scotland. However, the Plan will facilitate and accelerate restoration beyond current efforts and aid in Scotland’s ambition to halt and reverse biodiversity decline and become Nature Positive by 2030.

Next steps

The draft Marine and Coastal Restoration Plan was open for public consultation between July and October 2025, of which our SEA Environmental Report formed a part. Scottish Government will use the responses to refine the final package of actions that will be in the plan.

Read our SEA Environmental Report for the draft Marine and Coastal Restoration Plan

View the Plan consultation (closed to responses)

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Header photo courtesy RSPB

This article was originally published in October 2025, and has since been updated to reflect the closure of the consultation