City biodiversity highlights

A report outlining the progress made implementing the city’s Biodiversity Action Plan in the last year will be put before councillors next week.

The Dundee Biodiversity Action Plan looks to raise awareness of the wildlife (flora and fauna) of Dundee in an international, national and local context. It also aims to highlight the contribution and influence of Dundee’s biodiversity on the quality of life and economic opportunities of everyone who lives in the city.

Some of the work highlighted in the report which has been carried out in the past year, the fourth year of the Action Plan’s existence, includes:

• The Council benefited from £171,000 from the Scottish Government’s directly funded Nature Restoration Fund to halt biodiversity decline, with an increased allocation this year to improve nature networks;
• The replacement planting of street trees, the creation of new biodiversity grassland areas along Lochee Road, entrance improvements to Riverside Nature Park and Broughty Ferry Local Nature Reserve, access and biodiversity improvements at Camperdown Park, Templeton Woods and an area of recent tree planting at Brackens all took place;
• The purchase and installation of swift nesting boxes and amphibian ladders for drains;
• Contracting an audit of all open spaces in the city in preparation for an Open Space Strategy;
• A programme of invasive non-native species control was undertaken;
• All seven Green Flag sites were assessed, and all retained their Green Flag status;
• Broughty Ferry Beach was successful in achieving the Keep Scotland Beautiful Beach Award, retaining an excellent standard of bathing water quality, as measured by SEPA;
• The partnership with EDEN was also developed with further meadow creation projects at Riverside Drive and Camperdown Park;
• A significant area of coastal grassland is being developed as part of the Broughty Ferry to Monifieith Active Travel project using locally sourced meadow seed and implemented without the need for herbicide.

Climate, Environment & Biodiversity Committee Convener Cllr Heather Anderson said: “We now know that the climate and nature emergency are two sides of the same coin. We know we need to work with nature to increase Dundee’s resilience to our changing climate. In line with our commitment to the Edinburgh Declaration, we’ve made significant investment in projects and worked closely with our communities to improve nature and biodiversity across the city.

“This approach can deliver benefits by supporting health and well-being, green jobs, air and water quality improvements in addition to supporting nature recovery. With the adoption of the National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4), the opportunities to conserve, restore and enhance biodiversity in different ways are also increased.

“In the past year, the Council’s capital funding has helped to deliver improvements to local greenspaces as identified by local communities and through internal green flag audits. Projects include tree planting at Magdalen Green and Dawson Park, improvements at Stobsmuir Ponds and new planting on roundabouts along Riverside Drive.

“Additionally, last year a £100,000 revenue budget was also identified to support the implementation of the Biodiversity Action Plan. This allowed work to be carried out across Dundee to prevent biodiversity loss and improve nature in original ways throughout the city.”

To support a review of the Biodiversity Action Plan, preparatory actions have been taking place including the development of a nature network tool following an ask from NatureScot, an open space audit made possible by additional revenue funding to create an updated open space map, and working with SEPA, the Council is developing a re-naturalisation project of the watercourse at the Dighty.

Using these results and by carrying out focused consultation with partners, councillors are being asked to approve that an updated Biodiversity Action Plan be brought forward for consideration by elected members in Spring 2025.

The current progress report will go to the Climate, Environment & Biodiversity Committee on Monday 10th June 2024.

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