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What we achieved in Wales in 2023

Our highlights and reasons for hope from 2023

The family at Rest Farm, both parents and two children, walk through the field long the hedgerow.

A nature-friendly future for farming in wales

Over 3,000 people in Wales supported our call to put nature at the heart of the Wales Agriculture Bill. The Bill is now an Act, cementing a resilient environment as fundamental for social and economic sustainability in Welsh law for the first time. 

Thanks to WWF Cymru campaigning, working with nature-friendly farmers, and a 3000+ strong petition we successfully advocated for agroecology to be central to the Act, putting farmers, food producers and citizens at the heart of solutions and recognising a resilient environment as a foundation of social and economic sustainability in Welsh law for the first time. 

Despite being home to wonderful wildlife and spectacular scenery, Wales is one of the most nature-depleted places on the planet with one in six species in Wales is facing extinction. Almost 90% of Wales is farmed, so supporting farmers to adopt more climate and nature friendly practices is crucial to securing our future and our ability to produce food.  

The Land of Our Future campaign will now call on Welsh Government to ensure the new system of agricultural payments – The Sustainable Farming Scheme - has enough funding, is distributed as soon as possible, and is implemented in the right way to reward farmers going above and beyond for nature, to encourage others to do so as well. 

School of lesser sand eels (Ammodytes tobianus) swimming over an eelgrass (Zostera marina) seagrass meadow in shallow water. Swanage, Dorset, UK

A super year for seagrass

Seagrass stores carbon and is a vital habitat for biodiversity. It can also help protect communities from the impacts of coastal erosion and flooding. 

WWF Cymru are working with local partners and communities to restore seagrass meadows. In 2020 we successfully planted two hectares of seagrass meadows in Dale. Since then, we’ve launched a project to restore ten hectares of seagrass meadow in Anglesey and the Llyn Peninsula and have already supported the planting of 240k seeds in North Wales and a collection of over 1 million seeds for further planting through the Seagrass Ocean Rescue project in Wales. 

Project Seagrass and Swansea University are developing and trialling innovative technology and methods for restoring seagrass. For example, in 2023 in Dale, the project ran successful trials to plant seagrass seeds using the Reefgen Robot planter. This high-tech robot has the potential to plant at larger scales than current methods which could make it easier and cheaper to scale up restoration.  

WWF aims to support the planting of 9 million seeds across 18 ha in the UK by the end of 2026. 

Over 2,000 people from Wales supported our Seagrass petition. We presented it in style at the Senedd with the help of school pupils from Wrexham who performed an incredible seagrass rap!

The WWF Cymru team pictured in front of a Save Our Wild Isles board at an event.

Diolch

Over 10,000 actions from Wales were taken in support of WWF campaigns in 2023!

Thank you for supporting our work to bring our world back to life. From the comments on social media to letters received from schools, we’re inspired by the support and love for Welsh nature.  

Whether you adopt an animal, donate, take our campaign actions or spread the message on social media feeds, with family and your communities, your support means the world and allows us to continue our vital work.

Diolch, from the entire WWF Cymru team.