7. Statement by the Minister for Climate Change: Biodiversity

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:05 pm on 10 January 2023.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 6:05, 10 January 2023

Thanks very much, Janet. It was amazing to be at COP15, I have to say. You really do come back feeling evangelical about the need to move on this stuff. One of the things that I really wish I could share with all Members here in the Senedd is that, at the entrance to COP15, there was what was called a 'wholly immersive room', where you went in and you had the most incredible film from National Geographic and various other nature film makers from around the world. It was amazing because you felt like you were in the sea or in the grasslands, the way it was done. And then, horrifyingly, it started to tell you all of the things that had disappeared from the films that you were looking at. It was stark. And then it started to put the numbers of species that had disappeared by year around the wall. I'm going cold even thinking about it now. So, you started off with this magnificent planet that we live on and then the destruction that followed. And then, finally, it ended up with a spotlight coming down from the ceiling of each country and then a timeline of the biodiversity loss for each country. I mean, it was horrific, and you could see people being visibly moved by it. I really wish we could get that out to as many people as possible. It really brought home to me the damage we've already done and the urgent need to do something about it. So, the short answer is, 'Yes, we will regulate'. Yes, we will make sure that the 30x30 goals are in law in Wales and that they hold our feet to the fire. And it's not enough for us to say that we will make 30 per cent of the land, the rivers and the seas protected, because we've already done that; we've got the national parks and so on. It's much more important to say what exactly we will do inside those protected areas, what we will do on the borders of the protected areas, and what we will do to follow up from the biodiversity review we've already had, to make sure that nature can, at the very least, stop getting worse, but actually our ambition of course is to reverse it and start to recover.

So, Janet, we will be working very closely with you and others across the Senedd to make sure that the ambitious targets that we put in place are detailed. I know that you want the 30x30 protected, but I know that you don't know any more than I do exactly what that means in each bit of it. So, we will be working to make sure that, in each part of our designated landscapes, we've done a review of that by 2030, and then we've understood, from that review, what needs to be done in that area in order to go forward. It's ambitious to do a review of every area by 2030, but that's one of the targets I'm determined to see, so that that review is meaningful and it holds our feet to the fire—as all of us, not just the Government—to get this done. So, I'm determined to do that. We work with governments around the world—there's lots to share. We'll have to have more sessions than just this one session to tell you about what we're able to share. There's lots of learning around the world, but I'm also very pleased to say lots of learning from us. We are pretty cutting edge in some of the things we do. I was very pleased and proud to present the peatlands recovery programme, which was well regarded around the world. But more—we could do more with our own peatlands; we could spread that out more.

I'm not going to address the food issues because they're in Lesley's portfolio, but we all heard what you said, Janet. You need to bring them up, and I don't have time anyway. But in terms of the other two things that you raised, on the marine environment, absolutely we will protect that, absolutely we will be renewing our approach to the spatial protection. But, yet again, we want to know what that means. What is a marine conservation zone? What exactly is conserved in it? What can you and cannot do in that? You know, does it mean completely protected, does it mean partially protected—what does it mean? And I want to get to the point where, if I said to you 'marine conservation zone' or 'designated landscape', and you were Mr and Mrs Jones of Preseli, you would be able to tell me what the heck that meant. Because, at the moment, we absolutely cannot. So, we will get there. We will get to the point where we know what each of those means. We will have done that alongside our own communities, so that our fisher folk and our farmers and everybody else understands what we're doing and why, and why it's important for them as much as it is for any of the rest of us. And we will do that rapidly, so that, when we bring the Bill forward for this Senedd, we have the targets in place and we have the environmental governance body, with teeth, to hold our feet to that fire. And I'm determined to do it. We will learn from what's been done already, and, I tell you what, it was so good to go there, because it made me even more determined to do it.