Minister orders NRW to ignore evidence ahead of Board meeting

NRW worry about "reputational risk" as Minister orders the Board to ignore science and evidence at their forthcoming meeting.

The papers set out for this Thursday's (20^th September) Natural Resources Wales (NRW) Board meeting have revealed a deep concern within NRW about the risk to their reputation, following an instruction from the Minister for Environment Hannah Blythyn not to renew leases for pheasant shooting.

Noted under "key risks", the papers clearly declare that there is a risk to NRW's reputation as an evidence-based organisation if they were to follow the Minister's instructions. The papers state "that the decision is not evidence-based or consistent with the outcome of NRW's Review of the use of firearms". It goes on to clarify the fact that they (the Ministers) "are able to direct NRW in relation to its management" even if the Ministers are flying in the face of the available evidence.

Countryside Alliance Wales Director Rachel Evans said: "It is my firm belief that NRW have been pushed into making a decision that they are not at all comfortable with, and I agree completely with NRW that Minister Hannah Blythyn's position is 'not evidence-based'. NRW are also right to fret about 'reputational risk'. If NRW are forced to take a position that the Board knows is not supported by the evidence, as documented in their increasingly expensive review, its reputation with the land management community across the length and breadth of Wales will lie in tatters."

In a letter to the board last July the Minster outlined Welsh Government's objections to pheasant shooting and game bird rearing, stating that it was her recommendation that leases on NRW land not be renewed. This went entirely against the recommendations of NRW's own review into the subject, which proved that pheasant shooting delivers on Sustainable Management of Natural Resources and on the Well-Being goals for Wales as set out in the Future Generations Wales Act.

Rachel Evans continued: "It begs the question how this whole scenario must look to the rest of the UK and beyond, and calls into question the sort of relationship Welsh Government want with those they charge to be caretakers of their estate."