The Welsh government is consulting on whether to introduce a duty for ministers to protect biodiversity, through embracing targets such as becoming nature positive.

The bill could introduce an obligation for Welsh ministers to establish targets in legislation to address the “nature emergency”, it said in a consultation that closes on Apr. 30.

The “preferred option” in the consultation is for ministers to give due regard to a set of five EU-derived environmental principles, including taking preventative action and rectification at source, while developing policies.

“By placing this duty on Welsh ministers, any future policy and legislation will be unambiguously underpinned by the environmental principles,” the consultation said.

“This approach better aligns with Wales’s wider environmental ambitions and priorities, especially in the context of the [government’s] declared nature and climate crises.”

Welsh ministers would need to have a “demonstrative process” to prove compliance with the duty, it said.

A potential disadvantage of the duty would be that it might not directly apply to decisions made by local authorities, it added.

The government is also considering extending the duty to public bodies, but said this could potentially incur high administrative costs, and more evidence was needed on the effects of such a policy.

The duty would technically return a condition in Wales in place before the UK left the EU, but would also exceed it by being specifically applied in the Welsh context, it said.

As environmental policy is devolved within the UK, each of the four countries in the region have their own biodiversity plan to implement the Global Biodiversity Framework agreed at COP15 in Montreal in 2022.

Welsh ministers are planning a nature recovery framework with a headline nature positive target aimed at reversing the decline in biodiversity, with a suite of supporting targets it said.

The use of the term ‘nature positive’ has grown in recent years, despite no clear alignment between business, government, and civil society on its meaning.

The Welsh nature recovery framework will include “effective monitoring, reporting, and scrutiny requirements”, it said.

Nature reporting standards have developed rapidly in recent years, with the EU introducing the first mandatory requirements for some companies last month.

The government also proposed establishing an environmental governance body for the first time, following the launch of similar bodies in England and Scotland.

“The primary purpose of the governance body will be to provide oversight of the implementation of, and compliance with, environmental law in Wales,” it said.

By Thomas Cox – t.cox@carbon-pulse.com

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