5. What is the Welsh Government's policy on increasing the amount of wildlife on farms? OQ61269

The biodiversity deep-dive recommended actions to support meaningful delivery of the 30x30 target, including designing the sustainable farming scheme to ensure farmers are rewarded both for providing appropriate management of protected sites, and for actions that improve the prospects of nature in the wider landscape and freshwater habitats.

Thank you. Curlew is the UK's highest conservation priority bird species, forecast to be extinct as a breeding population in Wales within a decade without intervention. Evidence shows that curlew recovery would benefit around 70 species. How, therefore, do you respond to the letter, sent to you by conservation charity Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, working with farmers and land managers to deliver biodiversity and environmental benefits, and currently leading the collaborative Wales-wide Curlew Connections project, aiming to stem the decline of Welsh curlew, which concludes, 'We know that farmers are interested in improving the amount of wildlife on their farms, but we believe it must be done in conjunction with running a financially sustainable farming business and deliver multiple benefits, as farmers will tell you, they cannot be green if they're in the red'? And how would you respond to the submission by the Gylfinir Cymru/Curlew Wales agriculture sub-group to the sustainable farming scheme consultation, which includes the 10 per cent tree cover per holding requirement, and that the hedgerow tree element could have perverse outcomes for curlews?

Thank you, Mark. On the latter point, in the preparatory phase that we're now doing, we can take into consideration those wider impacts, as we aim to bring forward the SFS together with landowners and farmers. So, this preparatory phase gives us the opportunity to actually consider those wider impacts.

You specifically mention the partners out there who've put forward proposals of how to deal with it, well, we're keen to work with anybody who can help us with curlew recovery, and that includes, for example, through the nature networks fund. We've provided funding for a number of projects related, so, for example, in north Wales, the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust has been awarded a significant sum of money, £999,600 to roll out the Curlew Connections Wales/Cysylltu Gylfinir Cymru project. So, that work addresses up to seven important curlew areas, including the Mynydd Hiraethog site of special scientific interest, the Migneint-Arenig-Dduallt SSSI, Ruabon/Llantysilio mountains and Minera SSSI as well. But I do share your disappointment in noting the latest figures from the breeding birds survey indices for the British Trust for Ornithology, showing the decline of curlew populations in Wales. We recognise the challenges ahead, so that's why we want to work closely with Gylfinir Cymru/Curlew Wales and others to make a significant investment to ensure their recovery. There's widespread public affection for this iconic species, and the ecosystems and habitats that it uses, so working together, I very much hope we can make the recovery of the curlew, and other species, a success story in Wales, through things such as the nature networks project and Natur am Byth. Thank you for the question.

Can I just declare I'm a member of the North Wales Wildlife Trust? Last Friday I was invited by North Wales Wildlife Trust to visit a newly acquired site—they want to use it as an example of how land can be managed in a profitable way for forming a nature conservation. And I then visited a place nearby where that was actually already happening, which is lovely to see. There was a diverse mix of land for woodland, upland and lowland areas, where they worked with a mix of habitat livestock and food; some were grown in allotments and some in orchards. And I also learned if land is managed less intensively with less outlay in the first place, working with nature, profit margins can still be the same.

So, how will Welsh Government use the time of postponing the SFS to provide information, support and advice to farmers, working with these organisations and example sites, so that they can see it is possible to change and manage land productively for both farming and the environment? In particular, could you provide any information on the planned roll-out and implementation of the INRS, the integrated national resource scheme? Thank you.

Thank you very much. I do my best learning by being out and about and visiting some of these projects, and you rightly flagged some of the successes that are out there. There's incredible work going on that not only manages to produce really good, nutritious, affordable, high-value products, but they're also doing the right thing by the environment and climate change and flood alleviation and many other aspects as well—and wildlife, as we were just talking about, and so on.

So, this preparatory phase that we've announced for the SFS does give us the time now to actually work through how we can make that mainstream in different types of landscapes and different types of farms right across Wales, whether it's upland or lowland or dairy, or whether it's intensive or extensive—all the range of farming. And drawing on some of those lessons I think will be key. We have—just to give you an update—chaired the first round-table. We will have had three meetings of that ministerial round-table in the SFS by the time we get to the Royal Welsh. There's an official level group that is working really hard underneath us to bring forward the evidence of what will work, and I'm confident that when we have reflected, nuanced the way we can take this forward, we will deliver on those multiple benefits for both food production but also for the environment and for climate change and nature and biodiversity as well. So, thank you for the question.