Photo by Daniel Seßler
Wales has passed some of the most significant environmental legislation in its devolved history, with the Senedd voting on 24 February to approve the Environment (Principles, Governance and Biodiversity Targets) (Wales) Bill – a move that conservation groups have welcomed as a defining moment for the country’s natural environment, nearly eight years in the making.
Deputy First Minister with responsibility for Climate Change, Huw Irranca-Davies, told the Senedd the new law represented “a significant moment in our determination to protect and enhance Wales’ environment for this and future generations,” describing it as “a landmark step forward for Wales” as the climate and nature emergencies “intensify around us.”
A long road to the statute book
The Bill’s origins stretch back to 2017, when the Greener UK coalition, convened by Green Alliance, first identified the environmental governance gap that would open once the UK was no longer subject to EU oversight and environmental law. The Welsh Government committed in March 2018 to close that gap, but progress stalled as other priorities intervened, with a bill only introduced to the Senedd in June 2025. It passed last week with cross-party support.
Before Brexit, Welsh citizens could complain free of charge to the European Commission if they felt their government was failing to abide by environmental law – a mechanism that had real teeth. Notable examples involving Wales included action over harmful pollutant emissions from the Aberthaw coal-fired power station in the Vale of Glamorgan, where the European Court of Justice ruled against the UK government in 2016. That route closed after Brexit, and Wales had since been the only part of the UK without permanent environmental governance arrangements in place.
What the Bill does
The legislation operates across three pillars. It embeds key environmental principles into Welsh law for the first time – including the polluter pays principle, the duty to take preventative measures before harm occurs, and the requirement to address pollution at source – ensuring that all future Welsh Government policy decisions must properly consider their environmental impact.
It creates the Office of Environmental Governance Wales (OEGW), an independent watchdog that will investigate citizens’ complaints and scrutinise the Welsh Government, public authorities and some private firms such as water companies. It will begin by providing guidance and support on environmental performance, but will have the power to take court action if needed. The UK government established an equivalent body, the Office for Environmental Protection, for England and Northern Ireland in 2021, and Scotland created Environmental Standards Scotland in the same year.
The third element provides a statutory framework for legally binding nature-recovery targets, with the aim for there to be “clear recovery” by 2050. Ministers will be required to set both short and long-term targets within two years of Royal Assent – a first for Wales. Green Alliance noted that the public will also have a legal right to make representations to the OEGW where they believe environmental laws are being broken.
Why new laws are urgently needed
The backdrop is stark. A major review of the Welsh environment recently warned of “polluted rivers, failing soils” and “collapsing wildlife,” with one in five species at risk of extinction. Green Alliance highlighted that only 40% of Welsh water bodies achieve good ecological status, and that Wales is currently consuming more than its fair share of global natural resources.
Conservation groups respond
WWF Cymru’s Alexander Phillips described the Bill’s passage as “a significant milestone” after “almost a decade of effort,” adding that the new law would “recover some of what has been missing since we left the EU and aligns Wales with international biodiversity commitments.” He cautioned: “It will now be for the next Welsh government to pick up this baton and deliver a strong set of biodiversity targets no later than the spring of 2028 and ensure the strategies needed to deliver them are in place.”
RSPB Cymru’s Annie Smith said recent reports had “laid bare the scale of wildlife loss in Wales, along with serious underinvestment and failures in how our natural world is protected,” adding: “This new framework must drive urgent action to reverse that decline and the deterioration of our environment – nature can’t wait any longer.”
Green Alliance, which worked alongside RSPB Cymru, WWF Cymru and Wales Environment Link throughout the Bill’s development, described its evidence to the Senedd in July 2025 as “a turning point,” saying it “pinpointed areas where most attention was needed to ensure new laws were futureproof and sufficiently ambitious.”
Plaid Cymru’s climate spokesperson Delyth Jewell said she looked forward “to seeing how the bill and further legislation will strengthen the voice of our communities and ensure a cleaner, healthier Wales for everyone.” Not all Senedd members were supportive, however: Reform MS James Evans voted against the bill, describing it as offering “arbitrary targets” and “a new, ill-defined, costly quango,” and arguing that its estimated £34m cost “would be far better spent on our frontline services.”
Caveats and unfinished business
Green Alliance highlighted several areas of concern: bodies such as the Crown Estate fall outside the remit of both the OEGW and the Office for Environmental Protection; and unlike equivalent bodies elsewhere, the OEGW will not have an explicit power to apply for judicial review or intervene in environmental law cases brought by others — a gap that could, Green Alliance warned, “affect the courts’ views on whether it should be able to.” With the OEGW required to be operational within two years of Royal Assent, groundwork – including recruiting its first chair and chief executive – must begin immediately if Wales is to “finally shed its status as one of the most nature depleted countries in the world.”