Fersiwn Gymraeg ar gael yma
Today marks a significant step forward for the environment, as the Minister for Climate Change has announced the publication of a White Paper for a Bill on environmental principles, environmental governance and nature recovery targets. We prefer to give it a snappier title – a Nature Positive Bill.
This is extremely welcome. We at RSPB Cymru have been pressing for this Bill for many years. Last year we were part of the movement, under the banner of Climate Cymru, that wrote to the First Minister demanding urgent progress.
Members of the Senedd, also, have continued to stress the urgency and importance of this legislation, and last October we wrote about a Senedd Committee report demanding urgent progress on filling the environmental governance gap in Wales.
Nature Positive – a global ambition
Nature Positive is a global societal goal which – put simply – means ensuring more nature in the world in 2030 than in 2020 and continued recovery after that. It is reflected in the mission of the Global Biodiversity Framework to halt and reverse the loss of nature by 2030 and achieve recovery so that, by 2050, nature is thriving once more sustaining a healthy planet and delivering benefits for all people.
As has been done in Wales for the UN Climate Convention's net-zero targets, Nature Positive must be enshrined in law to make sure it drives ambition and swift action across current and future governments, businesses, and society to reverse nature’s catastrophic decline.
Since the climate crisis and the nature crisis are intertwined, both need simultaneous attention for a rapid transition to the nature-positive, net-zero future that we all depend on.
What do we want to see in the White Paper?
We will be considering the proposals in the White Paper against a check list of points that we want to see in the Nature Positive Bill. These include:
A clear duty to apply the core environmental principles in Welsh policy and law, to make sure the need to prevent harm and improve the environment is central to all policy development.
A new environmental protection body, or watchdog, that can hold the Welsh Government and other public bodies to account if they are not delivering their duties to the environment well enough. It must be independent from Government; able to respond to citizens’ concerns or to take action on its own initiative; and have powers to investigate potential breaches of environmental laws and ultimately take enforcement action. It must have powers to scrutinise Government’s progress on nature recovery and other environmental targets, and to give advice that cannot be ignored.
Clear goals for a Nature Positive Wales – to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030 and see restoration and recovery by 2050 – should be on the face of the Bill. These should be backed by a duty for Welsh Ministers to set binding nature recovery targets, for species and habitats, and a duty for Ministers to ensure that the targets are met. The Welsh Government should have to set out how the targets will be delivered and report regularly on progress.
Watch our updates for our views on the proposals, and ways you can respond to the White Paper. We must keep up momentum.
RSPB Cymru is very pleased to welcome the publication of the White Paper today. But there are no two ways about it – this is long overdue. The State of Nature 2023 report tells us that our biodiversity is continuing to decline and one in six species is at risk of being lost from Wales. Nature can’t wait any longer.