Thank you to Jack Sargeant for bringing forward this debate on the petition on the Elenydd mountains and the area down to the Mallaen mountain. I'm going to state today that we sympathise with the principle of protecting our land, particularly the nature and environment part of that land, but we mustn't forget the people and communities living there too. It's a concern that we've seen a decline in nature over the past 50 years, with species that were once common now under threat, and some having become extinct. That, after all, is why we have declared a nature emergency.

This area that we’re talking about today is alive with nature and we need to take steps to ensure its survival. But I fear that setting an area of outstanding natural beauty designation isn't the best way of doing that. The truth is that the purpose of an AONB is not to achieve these things. Indeed, if you look at areas that have designations such as AONB, sites of special scientific interest or national parks, you will see that they have lost a significant percentage of species over the past 50 years as much as any non-designated area. But, the new agriculture Bill, which has started its journey through the Senedd, now will look at the environmental and ecological needs. It is not by placing an AONB designation that will we tackle the nature emergency in the area, but by working in partnership with people who work the land, live on that land and enjoy the area.

I fear that campaigners talk specifically about concerns about windfarms; it’s worth noting  people's concerns, of course, but setting an AONB designation to prevent such developments would be a misuse of that designation. That's not the purpose of the designation. If people truly are concerned about developments such as windfarms, then the forum to voice those concerns is through the planning process.

Now, AONB is not simply a designation; it has a status and expectations, and those expectations fall, to a great extent, on the local authorities in the area. Creating a new AONB would place additional financial pressures on Ceredigion, Powys and Carmarthenshire, and these counties are already facing grim financial times, so I doubt that they would welcome an AONB designation. The national parks and AONBs are short of the funding for monitoring and short of specialist staff too. Yes, we must improve the condition of our natural areas, and the best way of doing that is to introduce nature restoration targets to invest in habitats that are under threat, in monitoring and in specialist staff.

There is no doubt that this area is an area of outstanding natural beauty; it is glorious and full of history. The potential for developing a circular economy with tourist initiatives in local ownership are great. So, rather than a designation that sets an area in some sort of stasis, we'd much rather look at building on the good work that’s already being done. The Cambrian mountains initiative, which is a partnership between the three counties, has developed a community nature park looking at how to develop and promote the area by learning lessons from the regional nature parks in France, which protect nature, work with communities and develop economic opportunities in a way that respects the environment and the communities. The work of developing such schemes is already in the pipeline by the Cambrian mountains initiative.

So, setting a designation such as AONB is not going to benefit this area, and that's why we are opposing it. But we do believe that there is an opportunity to develop exciting plans in collaboration with communities and people living in the area that would enable people to live on the land to develop the local economy, whilst respecting and strengthening the glorious natural environment in this very special part of Wales.