New measures and new money to protect Welsh wildlife

24 Jul 2013 02:03 PM

Minister for Natural Resources and Food, Alun Davies has announced new measures and an additional £6m to help halt the loss of wildlife and habitats in Wales.

Alun Davies hosted a State of Nature Summit at the Royal Welsh Show in order to bring together wildlife organisations, land owners and businesses in Wales and agree a joint approach to halting the loss of Wales’ biodiversity.

The Minister called the summit following publication of the State of Nature report earlier this year. The report highlighted dramatic declines in a range of wildlife species and habitats in Wales and across the UK.

The Minister announced:

An additional £6m for wildlife management. This will fund action in specific geographical areas such as river basins and upland and lowland areas and will enable partners to work together to protect wildlife and habitats in that area
An audit of data on Welsh habitats and species in order to improve the quality and consistency of wildlife data
Work to establish a ‘data hub’ so that wildlife data is collected once but used repeatedly and across relevant agencies, and is fully accessible to the public, academia and the public sector
Welsh Government participation in a €8.5m European funded research project, COBWEB which will develop innovative methods for data collection

Alun Davies said:

“The State of Nature report that was published earlier this year highlighted dramatic declines in a range of species and habitats in Wales. We need to take urgent action to halt these declines. Today’ summit is about bringing the relevant partners together so that we can reach a consensus on the best way forward.

“However we also need a clear understanding of the current situation, and a very clear idea of where we want to be. The measures that I will announce today will ensure we have high quality, consistent and easy to share data and a mechanism that will fund joint working to protect wildlife and habitats in specific geographic areas across Wales."