#2026/4Environment (Principles, Governance and Biodiversity Targets) (Wales) Act 2026
AI-generated summary for informational purposes only. Not legal advice. See the original source for the authoritative text.
This law puts environmental protection more firmly into Welsh public decision-making. Welsh Ministers, Natural Resources Wales and some public authorities will need to consider core environmental principles when making policy or carrying out environmental assessments, including prevention of environmental damage, fixing damage at source, and making polluters pay. It also creates the Office of Environmental Governance Wales, an independent watchdog that can monitor public authorities, investigate failures, issue information and compliance notices, publish improvement reports, and ask the High Court to enforce action. The law also requires Wales to set measurable biodiversity targets, including targets on native species extinction risk, ecosystem management, pollution, and better biodiversity evidence.
AI-generated summary. May contain errors. Refer to official sources for legal decisions.
Key Changes
- Requires Welsh Ministers and Natural Resources Wales to factor environmental principles into policy-making.
- Creates the Office of Environmental Governance Wales as an independent environmental watchdog.
- Requires measurable biodiversity targets for priority areas such as native species, ecosystem management, pollution and biodiversity evidence.
Obligations
What this law requires
Welsh Ministers must have special regard to the environmental principles and integrate environmental protection when developing, adopting, revising, or proposing legislation/policy in relation to Wales, unless the policy would have no or negligible environmental effect.
Natural Resources Wales must have special regard to the environmental principles and integrate environmental protection when making policy in relation to Wales, including relevant fisheries, fishing, or fish health policy in the Welsh zone.
Public authorities carrying out strategic environmental assessment functions for plans and programmes relating solely to Wales must have regard to the environmental principles and integrate environmental protection into those assessment functions.
Welsh Ministers must prepare an environmental principles and integrating environmental protection statement explaining how the principles are interpreted, how Ministers will comply with their duties, how negligible environmental effect will be determined, and how compliance will be demonstrated.
When preparing the draft environmental principles and integrating environmental protection statement, Welsh Ministers must consult Natural Resources Wales, the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales, the OEGW, and any other persons they consider appropriate.