Agenda item

To provide information on the Nature Recovery Action Plan.

To accept the information about the Nature Recovery Action Plan received from the Biodiversity Officer.

The Biodiversity Officer Ann Williams was welcomed to the meeting. The report was presented noting that the recent years had been a turning point for recognising the nature emergency and making progress with the actions.

Background on the National Nature Recovery Action Plan was provided which detailed how every area should get to grips with nature recovery and creating their own Action Plan. It was explained that the Biodiversity Officer will be leading on this plan which would be a joint plan between Gwynedd and Llŷn. The intention of this plan would be to get to grips with six national aims whilst also addressing challenges, worries and environmental needs locally.

It was recognised that the environment was extremely important to Gwynedd and Llŷn residents; the plan would ensure that these communities could continue to benefit and enjoy  the natural world.  The document and its aims would be aimed at a wide variety of people. The Gwynedd and Llŷn Nature Recovery Action Plan was intended to be a statutory policy document that would have four parts.

It was reported that consultations would be held before the summer as part of the process of creating the document; this Joint Committee would be included in these consultation sessions. It was noted in the meantime that a draft of the first part of the Action Plan had been prepared, the Joint Committee's feedback and observations were requested on this draft. More information would follow on how to present observations and the Biodiversity officer would send the draft to members of the Joint Committee. Also, the Biodiversity Officer would appreciate if the Joint Committee would take part and contribute in the consultations before they started to form the rest of the document.

During the discussion, members raised the following matters: -

-       A request was made for further clarification on what part of the document would be the subject of consultation.

-       A query was raised regarding what would happen after the document would be created and who would be implementing the content of the document.

-       It was questioned why the Joint Committee had not received a copy of the part one draft plan beforehand. There was concern that members of the Joint Committee were not aware what the content of this draft would be.

In response, the following was noted:

-       That the consultations would be regarding forming the second and third parts of the plan that would highlight how the general population could help nature recovery as well as the action steps and local priorities. These would be the most important parts of the plan and the subject for the consultations where there would be an opportunity to contribute.

-       It was noted that part one was only the background of the plan which was prepared in draft form where observations were requested.

-       That there was an intention for the document to be a live document so it would be possible to add to it.  It was added that Welsh Government had prioritised nature recovery and biodiversity over the last few years, which meant that financial funds became available more often. It was explained that the document would be available if other projects would want to refer to the plan and use it as a resource to support applications for money.

-       It was added that this plan would tie in with the AONB management plan; both plans would run alongside each other and were sources to attract funding in order to implement projects.

DECISION

To accept the information about the Nature Recovery Action Plan received from the Biodiversity Officer.