North Wales MS and Wales Species Champion for the Curlew, Mark Isherwood, has warned in the Senedd Chamber that there are only nine breeding seasons left to save the Curlew in Wales and called on the Minister for Rural Affairs, Lesley Griffiths MS, to work with the Gylfinir Cymru/Curlew Wales coalition to deliver the emergency intervention required.
Mr Isherwood, who has been working to save the iconic bird since becoming Wales Species Champion for the species in 2016, raised its threatened extinction in yesterday’s meeting of the Welsh Parliament.
Questioning the Minister for Rural Affairs, Lesley Griffiths MS, he said:
“The First Minister's Statement on Ministerial Responsibilities last week stated that you will take responsibility now for the protection and management of Wildlife, although cross-cutting responsibilities with the Minister for Climate Change still include Biodiversity and the Nature Recovery Plan.
“Speaking at the launch of Gylfinir Cymru's 'A Wales Action Plan for the Recovery of Curlew' last November as the Wales Species Champion for the Curlew, I stated that ‘the Review of the Wider Biodiversity and Ecosystem Benefits of Curlew Recovery and Applicability to Wales, commissioned by Natural Resources Wales, states that a literature review of 62 scientific papers provided a diverse array of evidence showing that Curlew recovery would benefit multiple species, both directly and indirectly, and furthermore underpins our understanding of the Curlew as an indicator species’.
“The Minister for Climate Change pledged at the launch to work with Gylfinir Cymru to ensure that the Welsh Government ‘can finance’ the action plan and ‘get it up and running’. However, although she has committed funding to the Nature Networks Programme, that only covers its protected sites, when the majority of Curlew do not nest on protected sites, range widely and therefore need a landscape-scale approach.
“We now only have nine breeding seasons left to save this iconic indicator species from its projected extinction as a breeding population in Wales. This is now on your watch. How will you therefore work with the Gylfinir Cymru coalition to deliver the emergency intervention required?”
The Minister said she is aware of the urgency required in relation to the Curlew and that she’ll be “very happy to work with Gylfinir Cymru.”