Will the Minister outline what her department has spent on biodiversity conservation in each of the last three financial years?
In Wales we take an ecosystem approach, in line with internationally recognised best practice. As a result, biodiversity conservation is embedded in a wide variety of environmental schemes to, amongst other things, enhance habitats, support farmers and improve water quality. Therefore, there is no single figure that can be attributed to biodiversity conservation.
I have been working across government to ensure all our policies and programmes integrate biodiversity into decision making to deliver outcomes that maintain and enhance biodiversity as we well as delivering a range of other benefits to society. An example of success in this is through transport initiatives such as creating green corridors.
In addition, my department provides substantial funding to Natural Resources Wales, and the Welsh Government provides funding to the Welsh National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. These organisations have the conservation and enhancement of biodiversity as one of their core aims.
As recently announced, in the coming year my department will be allocating £35m additional funding to a number of new programmes specifically aimed at building resilient ecosystems to support biodiversity. These include developing a National Forest, improving our peatlands, conserving our seas, improving inland water quality and restoring our Natura 2000 Network.