Nature and biodiversity

Janet Finch-SaundersConservative

10 February 2026, Plenary

Group 3: Office of Environmental Governance Wales: establishment and related matters (Amendments 33, 25, 46, 26, 32, 8, 48)

Diolch, Llywydd. This amendment requires the Welsh Ministers to consult the Senedd's prevailing environment committee before making regulations to change the number of permissible non-executive members of the OEGW. This is a distinct and strong measure to protect the independence of the OEGW.…

Tagged from the title of its item or question: “Environmental Governance”Official Record

Y Llywydd / The Llywydd

10 February 2026, Plenary

Group 3: Office of Environmental Governance Wales: establishment and related matters (Amendments 33, 25, 46, 26, 32, 8, 48)

We will move now to group 3. The third group of amendments relates to the establishment of the Office of Environmental Governance Wales under Part 2 of the Bill, and related matters. The lead amendment is amendment 33. I call on Janet Finch-Saunders to speak to the lead amendment. Janet…

Tagged for: “Environmental Governance”Translated from WelshOfficial Record

Huw Irranca-DaviesLabour

10 February 2026, Plenary

Group 2: Environmental protection and improvement report (Amendment 53)

…of those very principles. But thirdly and importantly, it must also be borne in mind that the Office of Environmental Governance Wales itself will have an important role in assessing whether the principles are effective, providing advice and recommendations to the Government from time to time, as it…

Tagged for: “Environmental Governance”Official Record

Delyth JewellPlaid

10 February 2026, Plenary

Group 2: Environmental protection and improvement report (Amendment 53)

The need for action could not be clearer. The 2023 state of nature report showed the average abundance of terrestrial and freshwater species in Wales had declined by 20 per cent over the last three decades. Iconic species are disappearing before our eyes. The fate of the shrill carder bee, of which…

Tagged for: “species”Official Record

Delyth JewellPlaid

10 February 2026, Plenary

Group 2: Environmental protection and improvement report (Amendment 53)

…this long-awaited Bill. After the disaster of Brexit, a gap was left for Wales to fill in the area of environmental governance. That gap needs to be closed urgently, and that, of course, is what this Bill does. But this Bill is about more than just processes and structures. At its heart, it is about…

Tagged for: “environmental governance”Translated from WelshOfficial Record

Huw Irranca-DaviesLabour

10 February 2026, Plenary

Group 1: Environmental principles and integrating environmental protection (Amendments 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)

…for moving this. As we open today's Stage 3 proceedings on the Environment (Principles, Governance and Biodiversity Targets) (Wales) Bill, I just want to also express my sincere thanks to all those who’ve brought us to this point, including Members, but also the Senedd committees for their very…

Tagged for: “Biodiversity”, “environmental governance”Official Record

Janet Finch-SaundersConservative

10 February 2026, Plenary

Group 1: Environmental principles and integrating environmental protection (Amendments 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)

…Senedd terms of four years, and I think, really, that this Bill is so delayed, and we’ve seen so many species go into decline here in Wales, that, actually, now we need to make sure that any legislation we pass here is fit for purpose, and the only way you can do that is by holding your reviews…

Tagged for: “species”Official Record

Y Llywydd / The Llywydd

10 February 2026, Plenary

Debate: Stage 3 of the Environment (Principles, Governance and Biodiversity Targets (Wales) Bill

That brings us to our Stage 3 consideration of the Environment (Principles, Governance and Biodiversity Targets) (Wales) Bill.

Tagged for: “Biodiversity”Translated from WelshOfficial Record

Derek Walker

9 February 2026, Equality and Social Justice Committee

Annual scrutiny of the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales

…of legislation, the development of strategies or the development of policies. In terms of the environmental governance Bill that I've mentioned, we were involved at an early stage, before anything was published, to give our view on how that should be developed and considered. And there are many…

Tagged for: “environmental governance”Official Record

Derek Walker

9 February 2026, Equality and Social Justice Committee

Annual scrutiny of the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales

…for some of these public bodies to come under the legislation, and that's why we're pushing on the new environmental governance body and the new water regulator, economic regulator, that they come under the Act straight away. But some of them were already adopting the legislation, even though they…

Tagged for: “environmental governance”Official Record

Derek Walker

9 February 2026, Equality and Social Justice Committee

Annual scrutiny of the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales

…their contribution to the wider goals. We do that sort of thing with Vale of Glamorgan, Eryri National Park, as some most recent examples, on a regular basis. That work, led by Heledd and colleagues, is well valued, as I mentioned, with the feedback we're getting, and there's quite a lot of demand…

Tagged for: “National Park”Official Record

Derek Walker

9 February 2026, Equality and Social Justice Committee

Annual scrutiny of the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales

…think about. We've done a lot of advocacy and influencing around that. So, we've been pushing hard on nature targets, for example, and we're hopeful now that Welsh Government will commit to nature targets in secondary legislation around the environmental governance Bill. We've tried to push Welsh…

Tagged for: “nature targets”, “environmental governance”Official Record

Carolyn ThomasLabour

9 February 2026, Petitions Committee

Updates to previous petitions

…projects such as the seagrass one, which I know Joel is very interested in as the seagrass champion. On peatland restoration, I was talking to somebody at an NRW event where the peatlands have been been restored and retain moisture, but it also stops the spread of wildfires, which we get then in the…

Tagged for: “peatland”, “peatlands”, “tree-planting”, “beavers”Official Record