Welsh co-op development agency Cwmpas has made its response to a report by the Senedd on the decline of nature in Wales.
The Welsh Assembly’s Climate Change, Environment and Infrastructure Committee is conducting an Inquiry on Halting and Reversing the Decline of Nature by 2030 – which comes as WWF Cymru claims that ‘Wales is now one of the most nature-depleted countries on Earth’.
It its response, Cwmpas looks at how social enterprises and community-owned businesses can help to protect Welsh biodiversity.
“To reverse the decline of nature we need to change how our economy works,” it says. “We need to move away from business models and economic development that takes little account of potential risk to green spaces and chases profit at the expense of damage to the environment.”
Social enterprises, it argues, “tackle the challenge of building profitable, sustainable businesses in a different way, by prioritising the wellbeing of communities, local economies, and the planet”.
It gives a number of examples, including Bryngarw Country Park in Bridgend County Borough. Owned by Awen Cultural Trust, it is managed to protect and promote biodiversity, with rangers supported by a team of volunteers.
And in Wrexham, Groundwork North Wales supports communities which are vulnerable to economic uncertainty, working with locals to improve green spaces, boost employment prospects through training and volunteering opportunities, and promoting greener choices through reuse and recycling. It operates the Making More of Minera Country Park project, offering volunteering opportunities to maintain the site’s habitats for wildlife, which is boosted by an education programme which encourages local school children to learn about the built and natural heritage of the site, and to value it for future generations.
Câr-Y-Môr, a community benefit society in St David’s, Pembrokeshire, is the first commercial seaweed and shellfish farm in Wales. It works to improve the coastal environment through regenerative ocean farming, and improve the wellbeing of the local community through job creation, supply of fresh local seafood, and environmental restoration.
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“As these examples show,” says Cwmpas, “the social enterprise model can lead to an economy that has sustainability and nature at its heart.”
The agency argues that bringing local social enterprises into the mission ensures community buy-in and leads to greater awareness.
It has made a series of recommendations to the Welsh Government to protect and revitalise the environment, to engage communities in finding and implementing solutions, and to transform the wider economy to be “more sustainable and nature-friendly”
They are:
- Make social enterprise and community ownership the business model of choice as part of transforming to a sustainable and nature-friendly economy.
- Promote the community ownership of land and spaces for nature and facilitate this through legislation.
- Expand specialist support to social enterprises to grow and maximise their impact across different sectors.
- Embed a well-being economy approach across economic development policy, ensuring that the well-being of people and planet is at the heart of the economic agenda.
