Wales’ big problem and the farmers who are trying to solve it
We took at those working the land in Wales who are trying to restore our decimated wildlife
Hello,
We have another piece from my investigative journalism fund here. This scheme helps Welsh journalists try their hand at more in-depth and long term journalism, while also getting a platform and paid for their work.
For the last 15 months this newsletter has given a lot of words and time to looking at the climate and nature crisis in Wales. With 90% of Welsh land dedicated to agriculture, there is no doubt that farming, particularly intensive farming, has driven much of Cymru’s decline in nature.
However, it’s very clear that farmers are central to any solution to the crisis. It’s also really important to not paint farming communities as “other” when it comes to discussing Wales, because farming communities are Wales. Everyone in Wales needs rural areas to thrive and everyone in Wales needs nature recovery.
This is why I was so excited when Meg Pirie pitched this piece looking at how farmers in Wales are making proactive decisions to do both.
Meg Pirie is a writer based on the Great Orme in North Wales. She writes nonfiction and investigative pieces, specialising in sustainability, slow-fashion, regeneration, heritage and culture; and in particular how this can intersect with policy. Her interest in policy in Wales is rooted in agriculture, having previously created pieces on Welsh wool. In her varying roles, Meg has previously worked across a multitude of policy issues through a specific slow-fashion lens, across the UK, EU and UN.
Meg is now looking for long-form and investigative writing work and is currently seeking opportunities that will allow her to write her first non-fiction book. You can find her website, Linkedin, Substack, Instagram and previous pieces in these links. I really enjoyed working with her and found her passion for the subject contagious.
The story of nature decline in Wales may sometimes seem technical and depressing, but this piece shows there is hope and solutions out there. As along as we are prepared to grasp them. I hope you find it insightful.
Will
Wales’ big problem and the farmers who are trying to solve it
Reporting by Meg Pirie
“I think one of the things with Wales is we live in a very beautiful country of hills, mountains, pretty blue sea, but that beauty is not necessarily a good proxy for quality of nature,” James Hitchcock, Wales lead for Rewilding Britain, tells me one Friday afternoon.
“I wonder how that translates to people in day-to-day life, because as with climate, the loss of nature is incremental and that’s then really difficult to notice.”
Like James, the fact we are in a climate emergency plays on my mind often, constantly humming in the background. Being aware of climate change and seeing it in action are two very different things. We often act as if we are immune to its effects, but this only works until we’re not.
This is particularly relevant to Wales, in that there is a danger in its beauty. Think of Wales and you may get a sense of the bucolic – an idealistic vast landscape, with rolling fields of uniformed-grazing sheep, divided neatly by heritage stone walls, as native plants pepper the landscape. While this is the image of Wales for many of the tourists who descend it during the warmer months, the reality is vastly different.
A story of degradation
Despite being one of the first nations in the world to declare a climate emergency in 2019, Wales has a serious biodiversity problem. In fact, Wales is now ranked 224 out of 240 countries on the National History Museum’s Biodiversity Intactness Index, placing it easily within the bottom 10% globally. A recent report also highlighted that 1 in 6 species across Wales are now at risk of extinction, including species like the water vole. Our protected National Parks, which cover 20% of land in Wales, are also under threat, with a dismal 6% of total land area of National Parks across England and Wales currently being managed effectively for nature.
This loss is especially problematic for Wales, where diminishing species take with them language and identity. So much of Wales’ heritage is tied up in its landscape. Farmers have for centuries worked the land, and rural communities have made a life in Wales’ deep valleys. But high intensity farming is killing Wales’ biodiversity. With over 90% of land given over to farming in Wales, the Welsh Government has the inevitable task of enabling both the farmers and nature to flourish.
In June, Deputy First Minister and minister for climate change and rural affairs Huw Irranca-Davies introduced the Environment (Principles, Governance and Biodiversity Targets) (Wales) Bill, which is currently under scrutiny by the Climate Change, Environment and Infrastructure (CCEI) Committee.
Previous Welsh Governemnt targets such as the 30x30, a pledge made at COP 15 committing Wales to protect 30% of Cymru’s land, freshwater and seas by 2030, have fallen short. The committee’s most recent report criticised the Welsh Government for a serious lag in action in meeting biodiversity targets, highlighting issues with governance, capacity and resources.The Welsh Government says the bill “is a crucial piece of legislation that will empower us to address climate and nature emergencies, safeguard our environment from harm and ensure a sustainable future for Wales.”
So, how will the new bill hold up? Both the Climate Change Committee and Audit Wales have been quick to call out the bill’s lack of headline targets and the timescale of setting biodiversity targets by 2029, saying it does not reflect the urgency of the crisis.
The new bill has no headline biodiversity targets or timescales for setting them.
“The headline target not being there is unwise, because it doesn’t make clear the ambition,” says James Hitchcock. “If the public pound is being spent, people should be thinking about the long-term return. There’s lots you can do for nature that has knock-on benefits such as spending on restoring wetlands and floodplains or putting in leaky dams, that can help alleviate the peaks and troughs of water flow.
“We need some interim targets that the governance body can hold the Welsh Government to account on, because we ask a lot from land, but we derive a lot from nature.”
An economic case for biodiversity targets
While the Welsh Government has faced particular criticism on its lack of progress, there is no doubt that it has a hard task. It has faced pressure around its new Sustainable Farming Scheme (SFS), which will replace the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) in Wales and require farmers to meet certain objectives, particularly around the environment.
The new scheme will require 10% of each farm to be maintained as habitat, to benefit biodiversity alongside food production. All farmers in the scheme will receive funding directly related to the amount of habitat on the farm, and for those who want to go further, there will be more targeted site-specific opportunities available to enhance habitats.
However, Mr Hitchcock believes the government is missing a vast opportunity here.
“There is an economic case globally for investing in that headline target of 30% of land managed for nature by 2030. It can create a lot of jobs and it can create a lot of ancillary roles. It also diversifies the rural economy, which builds resilience by multiple measures.”
He says his group is working on a monitoring framework that has garnered interest from governments and has been worked up with academics and the British Ecological Society. “It’ll be the first framework to standardise how we record and monitor the impacts of rewilding, with socio-economic measures, and this goes live next year. Data so far suggests that rewilding approaches increase jobs by 120% in England and Wales and in Scotland [by] 400%.”
A crossover between biodiversity and productivity benefits
Rhys Evans is from The Nature Friendly Farming Network (NFFN), a farmer-led membership organisation supporting farmers who want to restore the balance between farming and nature. He is involved in the family farm in Rhyd-y-main near Dolgellau, and tells me of their flock of Welsh Mountain sheep and pedigree Welsh Black cattle, which are used to manage roughly 700 acres of land.
He explained:
“If you’re increasing the diversity of species in your swards [grassland made up of a diverse mixture of varying plant types], then you’ve got more herbs or wildflowers and it’s good for pollinators.
“This probably means you’ve got deeper rooting species in your swards so that it can work with infiltrating water, which is good for reducing flooding. But also, for the farmer, it’s keeping the soil moisture higher to be able to cope with periods of extreme weather and extreme drought as well. Some of those species will probably be nitrogen fixing as well, so they can fix nitrogen in the soil, negating the need to buy in expensive chemical inputs such as nitrogen fertiliser, for example.
“So there’s a lot of crossover between biodiversity and productivity benefits and that coming from farmers is the best way to deliver that message.”
Rhys has worked with neighbours on 10 adjoining farms alongside Eryri National Park Authority and Gwynedd Council to establish 8,000 metres of hedgerows, which provide corridors of food and shelter for wildlife, equating to over 55,000 trees.
Further peatland restoration, as well as the creation of numerous pools and ponds, have had positive effects. Rhys tells me that they are already seeing short-term benefits and a reduction in localised flooding, as well as an increase in the variety of wildlife.
Recently the organisation bid to the Welsh Government to allow it to look at regenerative practices focusing on soil health, diversification of crops, as well as biodiversity and ecosystem resilience.
“In particular moving from continuous grazing towards more of a rotational or potentially mob grazing system, where you might move the animals to another paddock or another strip and then they revisit that grazed bit after a long rest,” he explains.
“That’ll mean working with a regenerative grazing advisor, because this kind of grazing is new to a lot of farmers, and support to put the infrastructure in place to be able to implement those grazing practices on our farm. Because fields are all designed around water courses, if you then subdivide those fields there’ll be numerous sections where there’s no water. Getting water into that kind of section is one of the biggest challenges.”
Decarbonisation vs biodiversity?
In a recent report, Audit Wales said that in the race to meet decarbonisation targets, the Welsh Government was ignoring biodiversity targets, something which has not been rectified within the new Biodiversity Bill.
Ironically, you cannot meet long-term decarbonisation targets without meeting biodiversity targets. Both impact the other, creating a mutually reinforcing feedback loop. Decarbonisation as a concept, however, is far more tangible for politicians and businesses to understand. Carbon can be offset and reported on, which some feel is often why decarbonisation targets are placed higher on the agenda than biodiversity.
“There’s a different kind of accounting applied to carbon, which is easier to digest for policy makers, better understood, but also means that it’s more of a kind of theatre for political debate,” Hal Rhoades from the charity Action For Conservation tells me one blustery morning in mid-Wales.
“If biodiversity really is a great lever to address decarbonisation or climate resilience, they should be speaking very directly to each other.”
Our conversation covers a lot of ground, including The Penpont Project, the largest intergenerational nature restoration project of its kind, which Action For Conservation is supporting.
Nestled in the peaks of Bannau Brycheiniog on the Penpont Estate, the rural working estate which has been in farmer-ecologist Forrest Hogg’s family for 400 years. The project is made up of tenant farmers, the Hogg family, the landowner, Action for Conservation and a group of 20 local young people, as well as the species that inhabit the land.
Its vision includes trialling and experimenting with approaches, continuing to produce food from the land but using regenerative methods that are replenishing what’s being taken. Hal says:
“We’re trying to, for example, make sure that waterways are running in their natural courses, introducing trees back into the landscape where they would be naturally succeeding, and have the genetic diversity in the trees that needs to be there and letting nature take its course.
“And then be an example of doing this work in a way that is ambitious from a nature restoration perspective, but also socially just, and not based on the age-old patterns of essentially removing people from landscapes in order to increase biodiversity.”
Trees are a particularly controversial topic in Wales. How does this work in practice?
“Everything is a discussion with the farmers of what we can do,” Hal says.
“There are multiple forms of putting trees back in the landscape that are compatible with the farming system where we are, so orchards and wood pasture can be undergrazed by stock, and we also then have other areas of the landscape where we’re re-establishing scrub by changing grazing and trying to mimic more the natural movements of large herbivores, which is a ‘rewilding’ approach.”
Over 20,000 trees have been planted with the direct participation and consent of the tenant farmers, with some planted specifically to slow down water on the land.
“So in areas where we have heavy surface water flows, we have re-established nature corridors and also stepping stones for species that are flying or moving across the landscape,” Hal adds.
The project also involves the wider community and young people through things like community action days. “We’ve had everybody from a ninety-two year old to a two year old come and they plant trees, bud graft trees together, collect and process seed together, and that includes working with the farmers and their families, so it becomes a collective endeavor through the seasons.”
One of the most striking things about this project is that the farmers are, by Hal’s definition, working-class. They make their money from production and must therefore be careful of sustaining financial losses. Yet they are still able to make care for nature intrinsic to their work.
Tired of waiting
One of the best things about young people being involved in these changes is that they are the people who have the biggest stake in actually driving the change that is needed. Hal says:
“Our experience is that the involvement of young people has two really complementary and brilliant effects in these complex discussions.
“They’re disruptive, they get into those thickets of complexity and challenge. But the other thing that they do is, if you get challenged in those spaces by young people who have their whole futures ahead of them, you actually have to respond to them, you can’t just retreat, you have to give them an answer.
“And in doing that you get questions and debates and conversations that wouldn’t otherwise occur.”
While the Welsh Government seems to have no difficulty in proposing new agricultural schemes, policies and bills centred around the climate crisis, the consistent lag in action is clearly being felt.
Falling short on meeting biodiversity targets directly impacts future generations, which goes directly against the much vaunted Wellbeing of Future Generations Act.
The Wellbeing of Future Generations Act 2015, enacted by the Welsh Government a decade ago, is supposed to force public bodies to consider the long-term impact of their decision-making practices on future generations.
However some Welsh farmers and private organisations are taking the biodiversity crisis into their own hands and, in doing so, proving both its environmental and economic case for change. Many are doing so without subsidies, without waiting for the Welsh Government. Just as importantly, they are making future generations - young people with their whole futures ahead of them and who deserve better - central to decision making.
Farming makes up 90% of Welsh land. Having both a thriving industry that also rebuilds our decimated wildlife is in everyone’s interest. It’s clear from the work that is already going on in Wales that these two aims are not mutually exclusive and we need to stop debating the issue as though they are.
Brilliant article! Da iawn! We can't just blame farmers, we need to support them to be able to prosper sustainably. The benefits go far beyond financial, and the future of Wales depends on it.
Da iawn Rhys Evans, yn adfer tir Hywel Dda, hen farm fy nhaid!