6. How will the Welsh Government's forthcoming nature recovery action plan support the delivery of the UK marine strategy regulations? OAQ53648

Thank you. The nature recovery action plan is our national biodiversity strategy for land and sea, and sets out our commitment to biodiversity in Wales. Its six objectives support the UK marine strategy and our aims to achieve and maintain the good environmental status of our waters.

Minister, given that the forthcoming UK marine strategy consultation will show that the UK has not reached its 2020 target of good environmental status for the majority of the 14 descriptors, and none of the biodiversity-related descriptors, what action is Wales going to take to ensure that we are not in this position again in 2030?

Thank you. I remain fully committed to delivering the robust programme of measures that were published back in 2015 as they apply to Wales, to continue to work towards achieving and maintaining good environmental status. Wales is now recognised internationally as being ahead of the game through our legislative and policy approach. That focuses on building and enhancing resilient ecosystems.

We're taking a number of positive actions to achieve this. We support delivery of the UK marine strategy, as I said. We embed delivery for biodiversity and ecosystem resilience across portfolios, including through the national resources policy. We've obviously had our draft first national marine plan, which highlights that, too. We've got the marine protected area network management framework 2018-23, and the delivery of associated annual action plans, again, working with stakeholders to ensure our extensive network of MPAs are effectively managed, and that's really important and continues to contribute to the conservation, improvement and resilience of the marine area. We're also working with stakeholders to complete the network of MPAs in Welsh waters, and, as part of the ongoing assessing Welsh fishing activities project, we're developing management proposals for the fishing activities assessed as having the most potential to affect site features.

Minister, in 2017, the Marine Conservation Society produced a 'Great British Beach Clean' report. This report revealed that over 670 pieces of litter were collected over every 100m stretch of beaches in Wales, an increase of 11 per cent on the previous year. Litter from our beaches and in our seas is increasing. It is also threatening to entangle, suffocate and slowly kill our marine wildlife. Minister, what progress has been made in developing a strategy to prevent and reduce pollution of our marine environment in line with the requirement of United Kingdom marine strategy regulations in Wales?

Well, obviously, we all have a responsibility in relation to littering, not just of our beaches and seas, but our land as well. You'll be aware of the marine litter plan and strategy that we had back in, I think it was 2016, and clearly we are making progress. I think, also, the work that's been undertaken by my colleague Hannah Blythyn around reducing packaging is also very important.