Agri-environment Schemes

Part of 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Energy, Planning and Rural Affairs – in the Senedd at 1:30 pm on 13 June 2018.

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Photo of Mark Isherwood Mark Isherwood Conservative 1:30, 13 June 2018

Thank you very much for that. In a recent meeting with a group of organisations—the Countryside Alliance, the British Trust for Ornithology, Natural Resources Wales—I heard that agri-environment schemes for the curlew have been operating for 40 years, but they haven't worked. We've seen an 80 per cent reduction in the population in Wales over the last 22 years, and we're facing country-level disappearance completely by 2030 if we don't make urgent interventions. As you might be aware, in January there was a conference attended by 120 experts from conservation, farming, game and rural policy sectors in Builth Wells on the status and future of the curlew in Wales, and one of their key conclusions related to agri-environment programmes. They call for an evidence-based review of curlew prescriptions within existing agri-environment schemes, asking have they worked and are they suitable, and for pro-curlew policies embedded within agri-environment schemes, such as outcome-led prescriptive management. 

I'm grateful that I've got a meeting with Hannah Blythyn shortly to discuss the broader issues around the curlew, but, specifically about agri-environment issues, what engagement have you had, or will you have, with the sector to help guide the development of agri-environment schemes in the future that reverse this decline as a matter of urgency?