The next item is the statement by the Minister for Climate Change on nature, biodiversity and local places for nature. I call on the Minister for Climate Change to make her statement—Julie James.

Diolch, Llywydd. The natural environment in Wales underpins our well-being. Access to nature and taking action with others to care for nature benefits our mental health. The connection we have in Wales to our land and waters runs deep in our culture. It makes us who we are. Whilst we rely on nature for the economic opportunities it provides and the protection against pollution and natural hazards, our relationship is not purely functional. We cannot capture the full value of nature in a balance sheet and we cannot afford to leave its fate to be determined by the free market. The many thousands of people across Wales already taking action to halt and reverse the decline in nature are inspired by a desire to hand on our natural heritage in a condition of which we can be proud.

Developing a more sustainable relationship with the natural world begins in our local communities. The aim of this Government is to strengthen the connections between communities and nature by increasing the opportunities for people to be a part of collective action to respond to the climate and nature emergencies. This approach is reflected in the wide range of new initiatives we have developed in recent years, including our national forest, the sustainable farming scheme, our world-leading requirements to implement sustainable drainage, the priority we are giving to nature-based flood management schemes, and others. We are committed also over the course of this term to develop further initiatives, including a coastal habitat restoration scheme, a new national park, and supporting the designation of inland bathing waters to build on the high bathing water standards achieved right across the Welsh coastline. I believe there are opportunities to apply the approach we have taken to exemplar housing sites to developing exemplar nature recovery sites, particularly across the national nature resource areas identified in 'Future Wales'. These actions are not simply about maintaining and enhancing our landscapes, rivers and seas, but connecting communities more closely to them.

I would like to highlight two particularly important schemes we have developed with partners, and I would urge all Members of the Senedd to take a close interest in activity under way in their local areas and to encourage communities to get involved and shape this activity in years to come. The Nature Networks initiative was launched earlier this year, and today I have announced the first 29 projects to receive funding, benefiting more than 100 habitats and species of international significance. These projects recognise nature as a series of networks on land and at sea that we need to connect and grow to make them more resilient. Projects we are funding include connecting fragmented woodlands to enable species to establish habitat over larger areas, reducing phosphate pollution in rivers to protect nature far downstream, and improving the condition of habitats to enable some of our most iconic species to have greater freedom to roam—the curlew, fritillary butterflies and angel sharks, for example. Crucially, projects harness the energy of local communities—supporting citizen science, involvement of schools, and providing skills and training opportunities. In this sense, Nature Networks are both ecological networks and also the networks of people needed to ensure we are able sustain this action on nature into the future.

The second initiative I would like to highlight is the Local Places for Nature scheme, launched at the start of 2020 with the aim of supporting communities to create nature on their doorstep, working with local authorities and community groups both large and small. Whilst Nature Networks delivers at landscape scale, Local Places for Nature supports modest measures that can make a big difference at a community level, improving access to nature by creating and enhancing green spaces closest to where people live and work, from community food growing to nature-friendly mowing practices. Despite the impact of the pandemic, the public response to this initiative was overwhelming, and the scheme more than doubled in scale in response to demand. Not only do we aim to maintain this extraordinarily high level of public participation, but we want to increase it even further, and I would welcome contributions from Members here today about opportunities they see for us to achieve just that.

Our ability to support long-term action on nature has unfortunately been undermined by UK Government mismanagement of the public finances. By failing to provide multi-annual funding, and failing to replace funding that we have in the past received from the European Union, the UK Government has worked against nature recovery in Wales. I hope that all Members in the Chamber today will join with me in calling on the UK Government to provide a multi-year funding settlement for Welsh Government at the next spending review to enable us to provide multi-annual funding to our partners and communities, so the impact of the action Welsh communities are taking on nature can be amplified even further. For its part, the Welsh Government is ready to launch multi-annual schemes, including Nature Networks and Local Places for Nature, that can provide greater certainty and a longer planning horizon for those we fund, with a focus on the long-term priorities we are developing with Natural Resources Wales, local authorities and through our engagement with the third sector.

I hope Members will also join with me in calling on the UK Government to honour its promise to ensure Wales would not be a penny worse off as a result of leaving the European Union, and to provide in full replacement funding for EU rural development and the EU LIFE programmes. This year alone, Wales has lost out on tens of millions of pounds of investment in nature and in rural Wales. In the context of the climate and nature emergency, and on the eve of global summits on climate and nature, including COP26 in Glasgow, the UK Government must recognise the urgency of the situation and reverse its decision to deprive Wales of these crucial investments in the well-being of our communities. This week marks the start of COP15, the global convention on biological diversity, which aims to agree a new set of goals for nature recovery over the next decade. I can confirm the Welsh Government is committed to supporting the 30x30 target, which is proposed for negotiation at COP15, to protect 30 per cent of our land and seas by 2030.

We are committed to working with Welsh communities and the Senedd to develop our approach to meeting this goal. This will require strategic, regulatory and legislative action, which only the Welsh Government, working closely with the Senedd, can deliver. Achieving this goal will also require collective action in every community in Wales, where initiatives like Nature Networks and Local Places for Nature can create opportunities for people to work together to protect and enhance our natural heritage, and with it our mental health and our wider well-being. Diolch.

I do thank you, Minister, for this timely statement and the Noah's ark of activities that you announced earlier. I think it would be interesting for us all to know more about the 29 projects, but I do welcome the fact that nearly 70 species and 50 types of habitats are now to be protected. I would ask you whether you agree with me whether the 29 projects would be even more exciting if we could understand more how they are to contribute to achieving a specific target set by us. Fourteen weeks on from the declaration of a nature emergency, there's been no action as yet to act on the calls of this Senedd to introduce a legally-binding requirement to reverse biodiversity loss through statutory targets. So, will you agree, Minister, to bring in some legislation and put in law those targets? It's obvious that we all support the protection of 30 per cent of our land and seas by 2030. 

Now, I am aware that you have started assembling a technical advisory group to help develop key strategies. By when do you aim to have draft plans ready for us to analyse? And one plan, of course, already published is the NFU Cymru's 'Growing Together: A strategy for sustainably increasing tree cover in Wales'. So, alongside reminding us of their ambitious goal of reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions for agriculture by 2040, it does highlight to everybody just how much our farmers are part of the solution. With over 80 per cent of land in Wales managed by our farmers, farming presents the greatest opportunity in terms of available land for new tree planting. However, will you commit to working to ensuring that future schemes for woodland creation will also reward farmers to deliver a wide range of public benefits from land, such as by planting hedges, shelter belts, streamside corridors, and the protection and the enhancement of other important carbon sinks, such as soils, peatlands and grassland? 

We have, up to now, squandered the opportunity for Wales to be a world leader on environmental governance, with Scotland and the UK now overtaking us on environmental protections. So, whilst I know that you are committed to bringing forward suitable-for-Wales governance arrangements, why wait for the First Minister or Counsel General to make a statement on next year's legislative programme? Should legislation be presented this term, I'm sure you would find considerable momentum and support from all corners of this Siambr. 

I welcome the overwhelming response to the Local Places for Nature scheme, and can respond to your request by suggesting that the scheme could be developed so that it helps town and community councils across Wales to cultivate for their community by entering Wales in Bloom 2022. This can be easily accessed by schools to see the areas around our churches and chapels, often graveyards, become even greater nature sanctuaries and places to rest and remember. 

Finally, whilst I am eager to co-operate with you, I'm saddened that you have decided to claim that the UK Government has worked against nature recovery in Wales. You know, Minister, full well that the UK Government is placing Wales at the heart of the drive to deliver net zero and build back greener. The UK Government has committed £90 million to innovative Welsh net-zero projects, and last month you, in particular, must have been most pleased to see that the UK and Welsh Governments approved £58.7 million to help establish the Swansea bay city region as a leader in low-carbon growth and the green economy. So, is your attack on the UK Government a sign that you are now rowing back from co-operating on excellent schemes, such as the low-carbon programme, or are we all going to continue working together for Wales, going forward? There has to be this joint strategic approach by the UK Government and the Welsh Government. They are willing; are you, Minister? Diolch. 

I'll just start from where Janet finished and say that, of course, we're willing to work together with the UK Government if only they were willing to work with us. Janet mentioned a few of the investments she says that they have made but, of course, they're all historic investments. What they haven't done is replaced the funding that we've lost from the European Union, and she knows that as well as I do. She would help Wales very much if she were able to make sure that the Government that she supports stays with its promise that Wales should not be a penny less well off as a result of us leaving the European Union, and she knows full well that that's not currently the case. 

In terms of the other things that she's asked me, the binding targets I have discussed many times already in this Senedd. Of course, we will be looking at binding targets. We will be looking at that in the light of both COP15 and COP26, in the light of where the global community is, and to make sure that they are both stretching and achievable. So, I would be very happy to work with Senedd Members on coming to an agreement about what those targets should be, and I'd be very happy to have my feet held to that fire, because that's exactly what we want. We want stretching, binding targets. But we need to make sure that we set them in the right context and at the right level of stretch. So, I'd be very happy to do that.

In terms of plans coming forward, I've had very good meetings with the farmers unions myself. They have been very pleased to work with us. Our plan will be set in the context of our net-zero plan. We have, as you know, a statutory duty to produce such a plan. The plan should be produced by December, but we will be producing it before we go to COP26, so we can use it as the platform for our base there. So, we will be announcing that in the week just before COP26 starts, so I'm sure she'll look forward to that.

In terms of Wales in Bloom, of course we are very happy to support all of those kinds of initiatives. I do commend the numbers of community groups around Wales who are interested in the natural environment, both in beautifying the towns that they live in, but actually, much more importantly, making them receptive for pollinators and other species who are otherwise struggling. I'm very pleased to say that the Welsh Government itself has been able to install a number of bat boxes, bee boxes, and other types of things on its estates and Government buildings, so we are going along with the same thing that we're asking our communities to do in that spirit of 'team Wales'.

Can I start by saying that the commitment to 30x30 is welcome? It's very welcome indeed, Minister. It would be useful to have more detail. How will the Welsh Government fund progress towards this commitment, please, and what steps will you be taking to secure extra funding for habitat protection, restoration and creation, and of course the longer term need for the monitoring and maintenance required to keep these sites in good ecological condition? And furthermore, on this point, ensuring that the workforce is there to deliver on these ambitions will be crucial, as I know that you've set out, so I'd welcome more detail on that point, or when we could expect more detail on it.

On the wider issue of targets relating to biodiversity loss, I recognise that the arguments around targets are well rehearsed. The reason for that is that we have spent a lot of time talking about biodiversity targets over the past few months, but the Government has been hesitant to commit, or indeed to give anything away on this point. Wales, like the rest of the world has failed to take sufficient action to halt and reverse biodiversity loss and protect wildlife. I do recognise, Minister, that this has just been rehearsed with Janet, and I do note what you said in response as well. I wanted to add my voice to these points just to remind the Chamber that they are species that are currently declining in Wales or at risk of extinction, and some species have already gone. So, the more quickly, I suppose, that we can get action on this the better. I'm not sure that that's the best grammatical way of putting it across but I hope that that makes sense.

With COP15 opening this week, more than 1,000 businesses have backed a global call for Governments to put in place policies to reverse nature loss this decade. CEOs of companies, including Unilever and H&M have asked for ambitious targets, saying that they're necessary to drive investment and transform business models. Could you set out, please, Minister, in light of this, what kind of action we can expect from the Welsh Government, and could you please outline when it will be possible to see the timeline for targets and the likely scope of those targets? I note again what you said in response to Janet Finch-Saunders on this point. The recent Dasgupta review has re-emphasised that biodiversity is integral to ecosystem health and the ability of ecosystems to provide essential benefits to society. Biodiversity loss impacts on our life support system. It calls for Government budgets to be aligned with the needs of nature, and departmental budgets across sectors to be ensured that they deliver for nature. So, if it's possible to have some more detail on what the Welsh Government aims to do to realise this need, it would also be really useful. Could you outline, in this case, finally, please, Minister, what steps the Government will take to see nature prioritised in financial terms and to align Welsh Government budgets with the needs of nature? Thank you.

Yes, thank you, Delyth. You were trying to tempt me, I know, only very recently, to agree to the 30x30 target, so I knew you'd be very pleased that we are committing to it today. I'm very sorry I couldn't do it when you were asking me to do it slightly earlier.

Of course, what we'll be doing then, it's one of the targets proposed for the post-2020 biodiversity framework—that's the COP15 process, and just to remind everyone, I know that you already know, Delyth, that that's the process that was going to take place in China and was delayed because of the COVID pandemic and it's now being done virtually and co-operatively across the world. So, our officials have been working with other UK counterparts, through the Four Countries' Biodiversity Group, to develop a common set of principles. We'll be looking to designate wider landscape designations up to that 30 per cent. The 30 per cent is not a ceiling, I just want to—. It's not the limit of our ambition, but it's obviously a place to start. We also want to be really sure that we will be effective in improving and bringing back into good conservation order the lands that we've already worked on. And, Delyth, I know that you're very familiar with my various remarks on the Gwent levels, for example, and making sure that the whole of the Gwent levels comes back up to good conservation order. So, we'll be working to look at sites that could become exemplar projects, both for bringing the actual scientific work to bring the land back up to good nature conservation, but perhaps looking at different funding, community engagement, social enterprise-type models as well, to make sure that we have a sustainable model going forward that we can roll out across Wales. So, we'll be looking to work with all community leaders, including Members of the Senedd and others across Wales, to make sure that we engage and harness, if you like, the power of our communities in the groups that are already out there. I've met with a large number of them already and they're very inspiring and we're certainly wanting to work alongside that.

We're also part of the Edinburgh process of engagement with sub-national Government cities, small countries and local authorities in delivering the post-2020 framework, as it's called, over the next decade. When we've got that piece of work under our belt, then is the time to look at the targets. So, I want to make sure that they're stretching targets. In the light of that global set of targets, we want to understand where the world is going so that we can push the boundaries on it. I don't want to be setting targets now that then turn out to be not as stretching as they could've been, or indeed, so much more stretching that we simply can't get to them and people give up. This is all about harnessing the urgency of the situation whilst not being a counsel of despair, particularly for our young people. People reference all the time the real anxiety that especially young people feel about the scale of the problem that faces us. So, this is about dividing up into bite-sized, stretching but achievable chunks to make sure that people understand that they can play their role and make a real difference in the world. So, it is important to get the targets right. So, the principle of the targets—absolutely accepted. The piece of work we're doing now alongside the various other processes going on in the world is to just make sure that we get the level of that target right. I'm very happy to work with people across the Senedd, and its committees will be very instrumental in helping us to arrive at the right level of targets for us.

In terms of how we're going to proceed with the rest of it, well, we've got a number of things happening on all fronts, really. So, we're looking to support exemplar projects; we're looking to support our scientific groups; we're looking to corral the advice that we're getting off various scientists in a digestible way for policy formation, very much the way we did during COVID, we learnt a lot during the COVID pandemic about working with our scientists, our engineers and our practical people out there. So, it's about harnessing the right kinds of people to come onto challenge groups for the Government to make sure that they give us advice but also challenge us in our policy making, and again, I'll be looking to co-operate with the Senedd and its committees and yourself in bringing those groups of people forward and making sure that they're fit for purpose.

And the only last thing I wanted to say was that we also are very interested in understanding what's already out there in the communities and making sure that we can support them in an appropriate way, not necessarily just with funding, but in connections and with policy platforms.

I would like to thank the Minister for this statement, which I also agree is very timely. I agree with the Minister that we need to develop a more sustainable relationship with the natural world and that the relationship begins in our local communities. We all need to be a part of a collective action to respond to the climate change and nature emergency. We cannot leave it to someone else; those of us with gardens can plant trees and allow parts of our gardens to grow wild. These are actions all of us can take, or nearly all of us can take, now.

I further welcome the nature network initiative, with the first 29 projects benefiting more than 100 habitats and species of international significance. It's a good start. Does the Minister agree with me that all of us who can should plant trees in our garden, and we should leave some of our gardens to grow wild? My major concern is the loss of apex predators, such as owls and foxes, which, were it to continue, would distort the ecosystem. Does the Minister share my concern, and, if so, what action will the Welsh Government be taking to support apex predators? Because if you don't have apex predators, you have animals lower down the order, such as rats, which will grow and grow and grow.

Thank you very much, Mike. I do agree entirely with you. One of the things that we are aiming to do in advance of COP is look to see what we can do to assist people to plant trees, emphasising the right tree in the right place. So, for people lucky enough to have gardens that can support big trees, we can make sure that they can do that and have assistance to plant those trees so that they thrive and grow. We can also make sure that people have advice about what is the right kind of tree.

We've also—I'll just say as an aside—started a piece of work with the insurance industry, because many people have buildings insurance that says that they shouldn't have trees within a certain number of metres of their house. What we don't want is to encourage people to cut trees down in a mistaken understanding of what the root systems do and so on. So, it's all about the right tree in the right place for the right purpose. So, we will certainly be doing that.

We'll also be having a look at—. Well, we're already having a look across public land in Wales to make sure that those people who don't have gardens will also have access to space where we can plant community orchards and other kinds of trees and other plantations. I'm very interested in the model on the continent of a 'tiny forest' as it's called—a perfect, biodiverse forest on the size of a tennis court. So, I'm very interested, especially for urban areas, in what we can do for that and we're working with a large range of partners, looking for suitable sites for those kinds of initiatives.

In terms of the apex predators, we certainly are very concerned that apex predators, particularly raptors, are protected across the lands of Wales. So, we need to work with our farming and other landowning communities to make sure that they understand the right thing to do to ensure that raptors are protected and enhanced, and that we don't have mistaken targeting of raptors in farming communities. We've worked really hard already on really great projects like—I know you're very familiar with it, Mike—the red kite project, the introduction of the red kite, which has been a real example of what can be done when people work together.

I'm also very interested—and I'm not speaking on behalf of the Government here, just myself—in the reintroduction of apex predators across the world. Anyone who has seen the project in Yellowstone on the reintroduction of the wolves knows what the apex predator can do to restore the landscape. Elsewhere in the UK, in Scotland, beavers have been reintroduced into some landscapes. So, we will certainly be looking to work with our landowners and our scientists and our nature people to understand (a) how to protect the apex predators that we still have, and (b) where, if possible, to introduce apex predators elsewhere in Wales.      

As the Minister will be well aware, blue carbon ecosystems have been identified as having enormous potential to store carbon, and exhibit carbon burial rates of up to 30 times higher than forests, which, incidentally, receive a disproportionate amount of attention for their capacity to store carbon. As we know, Wales has a very long coastline; it has more than 3 million hectares of blue carbon habitat, such as coastal salt marshes and seagrass beds. Expanding them and restoring sites once taken over by farms and industry could massively increase the amount of carbon stored and help meet our 2050 carbon target.

I have no doubt that the Minister will know about the seagrass pilot scheme in Dale, Pembrokeshire, where planting seagrass beds has been shown to have many benefits in addition to carbon storage, such as increasing biodiversity and helping to offer a natural and resilient infrastructure against storm surges. In your speech last week, you stated that there was a lot of money available for tree-planting projects in Wales. Today, you have mentioned your commitment to coastal habitat regeneration, and the First Minister also today mentioned the importance of investing in maritime technologies. With this in mind, and given the potential for seagrass to absorb so much more carbon than trees, can the Minister make a commitment to financially prioritising blue carbon ecosystems? Thank you.

Diolch, Joel. I absolutely am recognising the importance that the marine environment can play in addressing the climate, and I am absolutely committed to establishing a targeted scheme for the restoration of seagrass and salt marsh coastal habitats in this Senedd term. We'll absolutely be working hard to establish a sustainable fisheries management project across portfolios, working with my colleague Lesley Griffiths, along an ecosystem approach, as demonstrated by the new—[Inaudible.]—legislation, which I think you're familiar with, and which will soon be coming into force. We obviously need to do this in collaboration with a large number of other activities around the coast. The Wales marine action and advisory group, which advises me, is beginning to develop a blue recovery plan for the next Senedd term, focused on action for resilient marine ecosystems and the growth they can deliver, exactly as you say, through nature-based solutions and community-based developments. So, I'm very happy to confirm that we are indeed looking at exactly that. You're absolutely right: seagrass and salt marsh restoration plays a huge part in carbon sequestration and management.

Just to say a small thing about the tree point that you made, talking about trees is a little bit like the World Wildlife Fund talking about pandas—it’s the iconic bit of it. It’s not necessarily the most important bit; it’s the most eye-catching bit. So, we absolutely are aware that long-grass meadows, coastal habitats, salt marshes, the Gwent levels, blanket bogs, peatlands—there’s an enormous long list of types of landscape that carbon sequester just as well. So, I just want to reassure everybody that, although trees are the iconic bit at the front, we are absolutely aware that they are not the only solution, nor even probably the biggest solution, but they are the most iconic one.

Minister, you referenced the benefit of nature on mental health during your statement, but we've also seen and you referenced anxiety, and we've seen the negative impact of the climate and nature emergency on the mental health of people living in communities that have already been impacted by these changes and live in fear of being impacted again. I know that Delyth Jewell raised this with the Minister for education earlier, but I would like to see that emphasis on support available and wondered is there any funding available to support people’s mental health in at-risk communities as part of proposals.

I was also pleased to hear in the statement that you are prioritising nature-based flood management schemes in response to the climate and nature emergencies. As the area that was worst hit by flooding in 2020, what specific plans does the Welsh Government have to utilise nature-based solutions to mitigate flooding and other climate-related hazards in Rhondda Cynon Taf? And how will communities across Rhondda Cynon Taf be empowered to be part of delivering such schemes? A lot of the action and response to recovery from the floods to date have been led by organisations or authorities rather than community led, with very little communication with residents or opportunities for them to be part of collective action. When will they see this changing from your statement today?

Diolch, Heledd. Those are very important points. In terms of the mental health point, I will certainly be working with colleagues Jeremy Miles and Lynne Neagle across the Government to make sure that, as we have community-based nature recovery schemes, we ensure that people are connected back to nature. We know that the connection back to nature really does help with mental health, and, as you know, there is a scheme across Government to look at that kind of social prescribing as well to make sure that people who have lost their connection with nature can rediscover it. So, I’m more than happy to update the Senedd as we take some of those issues forward, and I’m sure my colleagues will be very happy to do so as well.

In terms of natural flood management, we're investing around £3 million over three years in natural flood management as part of the pilot programme. We estimate that the programme will help reduce flood risk to about 1,000 properties, and it also obviously provides wider benefits, like habitat creation and improvement and enhancing public amenities. The programme is currently 100 per cent funded and is providing an excellent learning scheme that will enhance our future delivery for natural flood management across Wales. We’ve currently provided funding for 15 projects, which are being delivered by 10 different risk-management authorities across Wales. They’re working in partnership with landowners and key stakeholders, such as Snowdonia National Park Authority, West Wales Rivers Trust and the Woodland Trust, to deliver those mutual benefits. Once the pilots have completed, we’ll be able to take the learning from that and engage our communities on where the next set of the projects should be, as I absolutely do take your point that the communities need to be fully engaged in the project in their area.

I'm grateful to you, Minister, for the statement this afternoon. I think it contains a lot of things that we have the right to look forward to. Also, I'm very grateful and pleased to hear your answer to Delyth Jewell earlier in this session, where you outlined the process by which you will be looking towards developing targets; I think that's absolutely essential in terms of driving forward this programme. But there are two things I would like to raise with you this afternoon: first of all, my concern that there is a certain lack of coherence in many of the schemes and projects and programmes that the Welsh Government is producing. There are a lot of good things happening, and there are a lot of good schemes being announced, but I worry that there isn't the coherence between schemes that actually means that they are actually meeting the ambitions that they could be meeting.

The second thing is that of designations. The Welsh Government reviewed the whole principle of designations some years ago; I felt that the report was quite a disappointing report. And we know that designations by themselves do not lead to the protection of biodiversity, or certainly have a very mixed record in doing so. Is it not time for us to review again the designations that we use to protect land, nature and landscapes in Wales, to have the sort of coherence of designations that can actually prevent biodiversity loss and restore habitats? Because, at the moment, the one thing we can be clear about is that the range of legal tools available to us are not delivering in terms of biodiversity loss across the country.

Diolch, Alun. Thank you. Yes, I take your point there, and, actually, interestingly enough, I'm having slight déjà vu here, because I remember asking you this question when you were the Minister and I was a backbencher, so we've been working on this for some time. So, what we've asked now—I've asked officials to explore what can be done to further improve the way that our national park authorities in particular manage the protected areas within their boundaries. There are a number of levers we have at our disposal to do that, and I know the national parks will be very keen to step up to that as well. So, we'll be having a series of meetings particularly with the national parks, but also looking at our areas of outstanding natural beauty and our other protected areas, to see what we can do to enhance the way that our designated landscapes are protected. And, as I say, this isn't just about protecting the landscape, this isn't about not doing it any further damage; this is about arresting the damage and then turning it around and actually bringing those areas back into good conservation order, so back into increased biodiversity.

There was a really worrying report that we had over the weekend about biodiversity loss—we should all be very, very worried about this. So, we need to really seriously look at not just not doing any further harm but actually enhancing and recovering all of our designated landscapes across Wales. And I'd be very happy, Alun, to work with yourself, other Members of the Senedd and our committees to make sure that we get the very best out of what we've already got designated, and, indeed, look to see whether we should be designating other landscapes across Wales.

In your statement, you refer to

'improving the condition of habitats to enable some of our most iconic species to have greater freedom to roam', and I was grateful that one of the species you named was the curlew. Further to your very positive and welcome response to Gylfinir Cymru / Curlew Wales's action plan for the recovery of the curlew, do you recognise that this is about a lot more than freedom to roam, that, if we don't do something urgently, the curlew will disappear as a breeding population in Wales in just 12 years, but, if we do, there'll be multiple and multispecies benefits contributing positively to the sustainability of over 80 other species, and we need to embrace the farming population across Wales who have joined this agenda, and work with them and other agencies to make this survival a priority for all?

Diolch, Mark—thank you, Mark. I was very pleased that you facilitated introduction to the curlew group for me. We had an excellent meeting, and we were very much on the same page in terms of what needs to be done.

As you heard in my statement, I'm looking for examplar schemes across Wales, where groups have already come together with a very good plan for what they want to do. While I met with the curlew group, I asked them to have another look at their plan and see if it could be brought forward, and I'm really looking forward to hearing back from them. And, as I said, I'm very grateful to you for having effected the introduction and, indeed, for your championing of the species.

I agree it's easy to be paralysed by the extent of the challenge facing us, as the UK now has the most depleted nature resources in Europe. Good practice doesn't always travel well, and so I just wondered how we are going to share the good practice that is going on in various parts of our community. For example, I don't think that Nature Networks and Local Places for Nature are household names, and they absolutely need to be, and we need to engage all publicly funded bodies to be involved in this saving of our planet.

In terms of mental health benefits, last week I attended the open day of Adferiad Recovery, and saw the wonderful work going on, with people using gardening as a way of dealing with their addictions, and it really is a very, very powerful way of helping people with mental health crises. Next month, I'll be working with the National Trust, planting fruit trees in super-output areas of deprivation in my community as part of its Blossom Watch, and I'm very grateful to them for the work they're doing.

But I also just want to point out the work being done by Brent local authority, which I learnt about last night in a meeting, which I know that your Deputy Minister was also involved in, where they're using—. The fact that we've got cuts in local authority spending mean they're doing less grass cutting, but they're using that as an opportunity to plant more pollinating flowers and plants, and they've even got a bee corridor. They also have a monthly newsletter of the Brent forum, which ensures that everybody in the forum knows about what everybody else is doing. And I just wondered if there wasn't some sort of electronic way in which we could be spreading good practice on a fairly regular basis.

Diolch, Jenny. Thank you very much for that, Jenny; Lee Waters was involved in that as well. We're certainly going to be looking at learning any lessons that we can learn from that. We absolutely do want our new programmes to be household names. We were very heartened by the number of community groups that have already come together to do this. So, we've already got the 29 projects across Wales. Once the funding rolls out, people will become aware of the schemes because they're great schemes; I'm hoping that Members of the Senedd will play their part in publicising them as well. But you're absolutely right: what we want to do is take the learning from all of these projects and then help the next set of community groups come together to access the funding for this, and indeed, as I said in response, I think, to Delyth, not just the funding, but the ways of organising it, the ways of engagement, the ways that you can lever in different kinds of finance.

I attended a Gwent levels working group, chaired by our colleague John Griffiths, only very recently, and it was very interesting to see the very different organisations that had come together there with him in the chair; different alliances of people coming together in good practice to both enthuse people to go out and actually do the physical work, but actually for those who didn't want to do that bit, do a whole series of other things around comms and publicity, planning and all the rest of it, which goes with that. So, I think there's a lot that we can learn from each other to do that. There are several really excellent schemes across Wales encouraging people not only to garden their own gardens, but to go out and help others in their community who are not able to do that, and I'm very keen to be able to share good practice on that basis as well.

And last but not least, the whole issue around the planting of community orchards and fruit trees is of real interest to us, and we're going to be working hard on this—the right-tree-for-the-right-place kind of space—to make sure that we can get fruit trees included in the numbers of trees that we plant across Wales.

Thank you very much for your statement today, Minister. I'm particularly keen on the local places of nature and connecting people in urban communities, which most of our population live in of course, with nature, as best we can. In Newport, there's a community in Maindee, which is just over the river from the city centre, which had and still has little green space, but they have an organisation, Maindee Unlimited, and an offshoot, Greening Maindee, which is doing a lot of really good work in creating gardens and orchards for community use, working with schools to create corridors for nature near to the school. They have a project opposite Maindee library, where they're based, to develop a patch of ground that was once, basically, a public toilet with a little bit of land around it, called the triangle, to develop that and, again, to green it and to create a community cafe. So, they're doing a lot of really good work. And I just wonder, Minister, if groups like that, with a track record of delivery, would benefit particularly from the schemes and the funding that is available, when they represent areas that are particularly lacking in green space, and Maindee is also very diverse ethnically. It has a lot of social and economic issues, but improving quality of life through these schemes is absolutely vital and puts a spring in every local person's step.

Just one other matter, Minister, I wonder if there's any work you might be able to do with Network Rail where they have—again, in urban areas where a lot of people live—railway bridges that are very unsightly, they're quite forbidding to walk underneath because they drip with water, they're not well lit, they're very drab and forbidding—

The Deputy Presiding Officer took the Chair.

Can the Member conclude now?

I've been trying to work with Network Rail to allow for some brightening up of this area, with perhaps graffiti artists and so on, but they say that their criteria are such that unless there's a structural issue, they have no funding for those sorts of schemes. I wonder if there's anything you might do to work with them to address those issues and limitations.

Diolch, John. Well, on that last one, I'm very happy to say that we've had a great deal of success, with my other hat on, in Swansea. We've done exactly that: we've had graffiti artists and lighting and so on put into one of the big railway arches that connects two parts of the centre of Swansea together, and I'm more than happy to have you come down and have a look at it and have a talk with the people from Swansea station and Network Rail who helped us do that. So, it certainly is possible, and I'm more than happy to talk to them at a strategic level about it as well. There's a lot of greening things that can be done with the arches as well, actually, not just brightening them up, and Network Rail has a large amount of land along the sides of its tracks, of course, that can be used for nature corridors and pollinators. So, I'm very keen on doing that.

The 29 projects that we've just awarded funding to will be used as pilots, so there will be other funding rounds. As I said in response to Janet Finch-Saunders, one of the biggest problems we have is that we don't have multi-annual budgets ourselves. So, I hope that the Conservative colleagues that are listening to this today will urge the UK Government to give us more than a single year settlement, so that we can put multi-annual funding in to assist groups like the one you mentioned in Maindee and, indeed, the Gwent levels group, which could seriously do with some multi-annual funding, because we know that nature isn't a one-off piece, it's about both recovering it, restoring it, but then, of course, maintaining it. So, we need the funding to be multi-annual in order to be able to do that.

And, John, I'm very happy to work with you and others right across the Senedd to help the various community groups that are coming together to green our urban areas, and indeed, actually, to give access in our rural areas to the funding that there is, and, as I said, to come together in different and innovative ways of working to make sure that we can enhance all of our local natural places.

I really welcome today's funding announcement. Across the UK, we've seen a 44 per cent decline of 770 species as a result of habitat loss and environmental challenges. The nature networks fund demonstrates quite clearly that the Welsh Government is leading the way in tackling the biodiversity and nature crisis we face. The climate emergency and nature crisis need to be treated with the same urgency. I say that because, very often, people talk about carbon reduction, but miss out the nature crisis that needs to be treated the same way.

These projects, which include £1.5 million for the North Wales Wildlife Trust, are essential in protecting our biodiversity as well as sharing information on how and why we need to protect our future. The statement also recognises the power of communities, which is paramount, and since being elected, I've met with numerous voluntary organisations and seen the amazing work local volunteers do. But at the heart of this has to be a strong leader, backed up by core funding to help community projects thrive, and the nature networks fund will certainly provide this.

I recently visited the National Botanic Garden of Wales to hear from researchers about the incredible scientific work they are doing, saving pollinators using DNA evidence. Another example of how research in Wales—

Can the Member ask a question now, please?

—is leading the way in tackling biodiversity loss. But I was concerned to hear that two of the three scientists I met would see their funding cut, one in March and one in June next year, because it comes from the European agricultural fund, which comes to an end. Does the Minister agree with me that the funding announced today shows Welsh Government's commitment, which is great, but concern regarding the challenges that Brexit poses regarding European funding and sustainability of this really important scientific research into biodiversity and the DNA research? Thank you.

Diolch, Carolyn. Thank you very much. I, too, have visited the botanic gardens relatively recently and have seen the really excellent project that you're talking about. It is a real matter of concern to us that the UK Government has not held to its promise to make sure that Wales is not a penny worse off as a result of leaving the European Union. Research projects such as that which you've just mentioned are absolutely in the front line of losing that kind of funding, and we are working very hard with them and others to make sure that what we can do to replace at least some part of that can be done. But I cannot urge Members enough here, particularly the Conservative Members, to urge their Government to do more in this space, because we really, really need them to make sure that Wales really is not worse off as a result of us leaving the European Union. And, as we stand today, we certainly do look as if we're very considerably worse off. 

I was very impressed by both the national seed bank and the DNA project down at the botanic gardens. Projects such as that are the sorts of scientific advice we need to be able to assist our local authorities and our other landowners across Wales to understand what needs to be done to recover our biodiversity. The seed bank there—I know you were there to look at this as well, Carolyn, at least in part. One of the things that I think Jenny mentioned was the issue about the mowing of grass verges, and so on. Not only do we want councils to very seriously consider not mowing the grass verges, we want them to very seriously consider planting native wildflower species across those verges so that we have pollinator corridors all along our arterial routes. It's very important that they are native seed species as well as just wildflower pollinators for obvious reasons, because we want to enhance the natural biodiversity of our native species. I knew that you were visiting, and I look forward to hearing more from you about your trip down to the botanic gardens in due course, and I hope that we can use it to inform our policy going forward.

And finally, Joyce Watson. 

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I'm going to ask a question—one question—and it's about monitoring. The only reason that we all know that nature has declined is because of the longitudinal studies that have taken place that tell us that. And I welcome, obviously, all the new projects; they are to be welcomed. But, we mustn't lose sight of what we've already got. So, my question to you is very clear and very simple: is there money available, and will that money be invested in carrying on those longitudinal studies that tell us where we are now, so we know we're going to arrive at where it is we want to be? 

Diolch, Joyce. Thank you very much for that. I'm delighted to be asked that question. I recently had the privilege of launching with the First Minister the Elsevier report on Wales's research performance on the UN sustainable development goals, and it was a really interesting meeting. I have been shown, as a result of meeting the scientists that were present at the launch, the land cover map for Wales, which is available to Members—and we can make sure that it's placed in the Library or circulated—which does exactly as you've just suggested: it shows the living map of Wales over time. So, it shows us the changing landscape, where the canopy is, where the hedgerows and greens are, and how urban sprawl is changing the nature of the landscape in Wales. So, you're absolutely right: we need to know what we've got now in order to be able to protect what we've got now and enhance it. We also are able, from this map, to see—and I'm afraid it's quite stark—how much has been lost over the last few years, and so it's a good wake-up call. So, I recommend both the Elsevier report and the maps to Members, and I'm very grateful, Joyce, to you for giving me the opportunity to highlight it.

Thank you, Minister.