During the week that Tynwald debates the island’s approach to sustainability, Cat Turner looks at an example from across the water
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In past Green Columns, I’ve referred to Wales’s excellent Act for Future Generations – a statement of intent for sustainable living if ever there was one.
Building on this, the Environment (Wales) Bill was last week introduced into the Welsh National Assembly.
In 2013, the devolved Welsh Government published a White Paper ‘Towards the Sustainable Management of Wales’ Natural Resources’.
This built on ‘Sustaining a Living Wales’, which was a Green Paper on a new approach to natural resource management, discussing how to plan and manage Wales’ natural resources in a more sustainable and joined-up way.
It uses the ‘ecosystem approach’ developed by the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, something the Isle of Man is also party to.
The White Paper set out plans for the new Environment (Wales) Bill, and sets a good example, one which various other countries are mirroring while some even go further.
It’ll be interesting to see whether our own government can show the same vision and leadership in developing a strategy for a sustainable Isle of Man.
In terms of natural resources, the new Bill puts duties on public authorities:
– Natural Resources Wales (NRW), the new ‘single environmental regulator’, must produce a Statement of Natural Resources Report, assessing the nation’s natural resources and how sustainably they’re being managed.
– The Government itself will produce a National Natural Resources Policy, with priorities and opportunities for managing Wales’ natural resources sustainably.
– NRW must prepare ‘area statements’ setting out the priorities, risks and opportunities for sustainable resource management for each area and exactly what actions it’ll take.
This is similar to the ‘area’ approach under two EU environmental Directives (the EU Water Framework Directive 2000 and the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive 2008).
Already, NRW is trialling area statements in the Rhondda, Tawe and Dyfi river catchment areas. They’re not hanging about – there’s a genuine and inspiring intent to live in accordance with modern values, and not the rather plundering approach which typified the 20th century and the noughties.
– Public authorities in England and Wales must already ‘have regard to the purpose of conserving biodiversity in carrying out their functions’, something we hope to see under the Isle of Man’s Biodiversity Strategy. The new Welsh Bill goes further – it says a public authority must ‘seek to maintain and enhance biodiversity in the exercise of functions in relation to Wales, and in doing so promote the resilience of ecosystems, so far as consistent with the proper exercise of those functions’.
– New powers for voluntary land management agreements will allow NRW to work with landowners to manage land sustainably. Management agreements can already protect designated land and species, but the new powers aren’t restricted to ‘designated’ land and species – they include restricting land use and requiring work to be undertaken. They’ll be binding on successors in title.
The aim is to be flexible, though. In theory, they could also meet wider objectives such as long-term management of flood risk, something that’s also of interest here in the island.
The Bill puts a duty on Welsh Ministers to meet climate change emissions targets, by ensuring that net Welsh emissions for 2050 are at least 80 per cent lower than the baseline (either 1990 or 1995).
It also requires them to introduce regulations setting interim targets, and five-yearly carbon budgets from 2016, which are consistent with the 2050 target.
This we sorely need in the island. We’re already somewhat behind the game.
There are also new provisions for charges for carrier bags. Ministers can set a charge, for example, on bags for life, on top of the current five pence on single-use bags.
This targets a rise in use of reusable carrier bags which are not necessarily reused by consumers. Retailers must donate the proceeds to good causes, not necessarily environmental ones.
There are powers to increase recycling, improve the quality of recyclates and ensure that materials that could have been recycled aren’t wasted.
They will:
– Require business and the public sector to separate recyclables before collection, covering paper, card, plastic, metal, glass, food and wood.
– Require separate collection of recyclables.
– Ban burning recyclables in energy from waste plants. This is desperately needed, to prevent energy from waste plants from derailing recycling efforts and deflecting development focus from true renewables.
– Ban disposal of food waste to sewers from non-domestic premises, so it can be made available for uses such as anaerobic digestion.
The new Bill amends current marine licensing charging powers, and includes provisions to improve the sustainability of shellfish fisheries.
It also tackles some issues relating to flood and coastal erosion, and land drainage.
It’s now been submitted to the National Assembly for scrutiny, and it’ll be interesting plotting its progress as our own government debates similar issues.
There’s a lot riding on this. Some would say, almost everything.
Our economy and wellbeing is so dependent on the environment it’s almost impossible to overstate its importance.
I’m keeping everything crossed.