Last week Welsh Government published its response to a recent evaluation of the impact of the Glastir Advanced Agri-environment scheme.
Glastir Advanced is the part of the scheme that should be helping to safeguard our most threatened wildlife and their homes, however, for a number of reasons the scheme has so far failed to provide the conditions required for most wildlife to begin its recovery.
Over the last few years, we at RSPB Cymru and others have voiced our concerns that due to the way the scheme was implemented, Glastir Advanced was going to fail to deliver for a whole raft of Wales most threatened wildlife like curlew, lapwing, pearl bordered fritillary and many more plants, insects and mammals.
In response to these concerns, last year Welsh Government committed to carrying out a review of a number of existing Glastir Advanced agreements to assess their ability to deliver for the scheme objectives.
This review was completed earlier this year by Dr. Geoff Radley an independent environmental and ecological consultant, Dr. Ieuan Joyce the Chair of the Elan Valley Trust and Arfon Williams who is Countryside Manager for RSPB Cymru. The final report made a number of recommendations to Welsh Government on how the scheme could be improved. The full report can be found here.
The panel made 10 recommendations including:
These recommendations would ensure that work to help wildlife was delivered in the appropriate areas, and a diverse countryside would be available for wildlife providing everything they would need, from winter food, summer food and breeding habitat and food for young in spring.
Even if the scheme contains the tools required to deliver the habitats in the right place, experience shows that guidance, support and training for those delivering the scheme is essential to success. This has been demonstrated in a number of projects across the UK including a scheme to benefit cirl bunting in Devon, work to stop the declines of corncrakes in Scotland and a project to increase the numbers of stone curlews in the East of England.
In each of these projects the provision of expert advice and guidance was critical to the success of the scheme and delivering value for the investment of public money.
Therefore for Glastir Advanced to be successful, and to repeat the success achieved in other areas of the UK, ensuring Glastir Contract Managers and farmers receive appropriate expert advice and guidance, to accompany management, will be critical to the success of the scheme and delivering true value for the investment of public money.
Earlier this week, Welsh Government published their response to the report, and we are encouraged by the approach they have taken. The good news is that the majority of the recommendations have been accepted, and work will begin immediately to address them.
Critically, Welsh Government has committed to work with partners like RSPB Cymru to build on the resources and support available to the Glastir Contract Managers developing the agreements, and to ensure access to third party assistance where required. This should ensure those agreements targeted at priority wildlife stand the best possible chance of delivering a home for nature in the Welsh countryside.
This July we will be attending the Royal Welsh Agricultural Show in Builth Wells, so if you are interested in managing your land for wildlife, or if you would like to discuss existing management and how it could be improved then visit us in the Countryside Care Area on the showground. We look forward to seeing you there!