A Scottish scorecard for wild species is now guiding conservation from Libya to South Africa

Genetic diversity — the variety inside a species — is what lets wildlife adapt to hotter weather, new diseases and scarcer food, but tracking it used to be slow and expensive. Scientists at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, the University of Edinburgh and NatureScot built a simple, low-cost scorecard that grades how well a species' genetic health is being looked after — and this week it grew up: the latest version covers marine life, from fish and dolphins to sharks and seabirds, for the first time. It is already at work far from Scotland. In Libya, a team at the University of Benghazi ran the first trial of its site-based version, GenDivA, on a rare native plant of the south-eastern Mediterranean, and wildlife managers in South Africa use it in their guidelines. 'It takes complicated genetic science and turns it into something practical that conservationists can actually use day to day,' said Dr Isa-Rita Russo of ConGen Africa.

SDG 15 · Life on land — Mechanism: institutional program