Highlands Rewilding Board member appointed co-Chair of the Scottish Forum on Natural Capital
Dr Hannah Rudman, Highlands Rewilding’s Business Development Director has been appointed co-Chair of the Scottish Forum on Natural Capital. She joined the forum and turned her professional focus and energy to nature positive solutions to the climate emergency and biodiversity crisis in 2020. Hannah has been a co-lead of the Nature Finance Pioneers Hub since its early days, when it was a network of 80 people from 30 organisations. Now its over 775 people from c.230 organisations. Hannah is also a member of the Marine Natural Capital Navigators and of the Digital Enablers Hubs since their initiation.
Colin Brown is also appointed as co-Chair, and Colin and Hannah will work collaboratively with each other, bringing credible complimentary skills, experience, knowledge and networks, utilising creative and co-design approaches to work with the collective of the 150+ organisational members of the Forum.
What is the Scottish Forum on Natural Capital?
The Forum started in 2014, after Scotland hosted the Inaugural World Forum on Natural Capital, take a look at its timeline. Way back in the early days, Hannah was the "young SME representative" in the Scottish Government's 2020 Climate Group convened by Highlands Rewilding Founding Funder Ian Marchant, and Dame Susan Rice, which was the Forum's precursor.
In 2023, the membership collective agreed that Forum’s activities would be identifying and showcasing natural capital solutions. Supporting collaboration across business, finance, government and society. Fostering shared understanding of natural capital mechanisms and the financial, policy, scientific and social evidence. The Hubs and the exploration zones are doing that brilliantly, consistently growing, actively leading the forum’s outputs and impacts.
What is the vision for the Scottish Forum on Natural Capital?
In 2024, we all feel the pressure of restoring 30% of land and marine habitat by 2030, and to stop harmful activities that damage our ecosystems, reducing risk from pesticides by 50% and reducing nutrients lost to the environment by 50%, both by 2030. Talking about their vision, Hannah and Colin noted that now is the time to move from a Forum focussed on steering policy development and ideological debate, which has been appropriate for the last 10 years... Towards a Forum which is actively leading the things we need to do to achieve 30 x 30, finding the finance for nature ideas appropriate for our nation, encouraging stronger policy signals to support that. Its time to support high integrity natural capital markets to emerge in Scotland locally and at landscape scale, whilst encouraging the best standards for assuring quality and transparency nationally and globally. To do that the Forum needs more sectors and disciplines represented, all the professions involved, and local communities and society given agency to understand the importance of nature, and financing it to ensure ongoing healthy life, economies and society.
Developing a nature-positive transition
The co-Chairs also stressed that now is the time to develop the nature-positive transition (especially the “demand side” of natural capital markets). They want to increase:
Local & regional Payments for Ecosystem Services and Nature based Solutions,
Get institutional investors comfortable dealing with the environmental sector and vice versa, and
Develop and enable a more joined-up approach to the environmental, social and economic opportunities which emerge from thinking about them holistically.