Like everybody else who’s spoken in this debate this afternoon, I strongly support the Sandford principles, although I do take the point that the Cabinet Secretary made in her speech that these beautiful parts of our countryside must be thriving and living places, and inevitably there are going to be conflicts of policies and conflicts of interest, which have to be reconciled somehow. I do think, as David Melding and others following him, and my colleague David Rowlands, have said: what is the point of designating areas as being of outstanding natural beauty or as national parks, if not to give precedence to the principle of conservation? That is the founding principle upon which the initial legislation was introduced, with all-party support, which has been sustained even to this day. But I also—following from Huw Irranca-Davies—would like to congratulate Dafydd Elis-Thomas and his working group on producing this excellent report, which does, I think, provide us with an evenly balanced view of the way forward.

I’d just like to refer to a couple of the provisions that he mentions in his report, in particular on page 8, where he refers to the sustainable management of natural resources and the need to reflect a broad understanding of the importance of these areas and their ecosystems, and that they need to be given greater weight in decision taking. And then, again, on page 17:

‘the need for better policy integration and increased understand of how designated landscapes can positively engage in the agenda’, in particular in relation to developing

‘sustainable land management schemes tailored to an area to replace or complement existing agri-environment payments, including working with clusters of land managers’.

Now, there are two issues that I want to refer to, briefly, in the course of this speech, following on from those general principles. We’ve had these debates in the Assembly before, in particular in relation to the intrusion of pylons and windmills into the landscapes of national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty and the countryside in general. I believe that we ought to have a sense of proportion here, although I don’t share the enthusiasm of the overwhelming Members of this Assembly for most of the green measures that have been introduced in recent years. I don’t want to enter into a debate on the general principles of that, but I’ll just say that the contribution to the defeat of global warming—if that is possible—that can be made by windmills in these areas must be so negligible as, if you have a sense of proportion, surely, to require placing the interests of conservation before the interests of environmental policy. Because bearing in mind what’s happening in the rest of the world, with India and China between them building another 800 new coal-fired power stations, what use is it to desecrate our wild places in Wales in order to make such a minute contribution towards the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions that it can have no practicable effect on the climate whatsoever? So, I would make a plea in this instance, even for those who take a very different view to me on man-made global warming, to make an exception to the general approach in order to protect our wild areas in mid Wales, north Wales and west Wales in particular.

The second point that I want to make is one to which I hope we will return in due course, namely the wilding of the hills of Wales, following on from the EU habitats directives, as a result of which we’ve seen a catastrophic increase in most predators and therefore declines towards sometimes extinction of many vulnerable prey species. I believe that leaving the EU gives us an opportunity, as environment is obviously one of the devolved issues and gives us the power in this Assembly, to take a very different approach to the one that has been adopted hitherto. We’ve seen a rise in rank and unpalatable grasses infested with ticks, and as a result of unburnt, mature heather, that also becomes infested with heather beetle. Out-of-control bracken has created sterile landscapes that are unsafe both for tourists and walkers, and also vectors of Lyme disease. So, I think we’ve got to reconsider the way in which we look at these areas of the countryside. We must ensure, as the Cabinet Secretary has said, that they do remain thriving environments in which people work as well as live and, in particular, visit. So, I do believe that there is more of a superficial conflict between these different strands of policy than exists in reality if we apply a proper sense of proportion to them. But the key element is to give the Sandford principle the overriding support that it needs.