Wales Coasts and Seas Partnership (CaSP Cymru): 15 February 2023

Peter Davies, Cadeirydd PMaA Cymru / CaSP Cymru, Chair
David Tudor, Blue Marine Foundation
Mark Simmonds, British Ports Association
Rhian Jardine, Cyfoeth Naturiol Cymru / Natural Resources Wales 
Kirsty Lindenbaum, Cyfoeth Naturiol Cymru / Natural Resources Wales 
Mark Rychnovsky, Dwr Cymru / Welsh Water 
Andy Schofield, Evidence Platform Wales + South East Wales Rivers Trust
Neville Rookes, Gymdeithas Llywodraeth Leol Cymru / Welsh Local Government Association
Winter Dotto, Joint Nature Conservation Committee
Gareth Cunningham, Marine Conservation Society
Jonathan Monk     Milford Haven Port Authority
Jonathan Hughes, National Trust
Catherine Arnold, Platfform yr Amgylcheddol Cymru / Environment Platform Wales
Kam Tang, Prifysgol Abertawe / Swansea University + Coastal Alliance Wales
Katie Havard-Smith, Prifysgol Caerdydd / Cardiff University
Emma McKinley, Prifysgol Caerdydd / Cardiff University
Noemi Donigiewicz, Seafish
Phillip Turner Ph.D.,    The Crown Estate
Emily Williams, The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
Mike Elliott, University of Hull
Julie Rostan, World Wildlife Fund
Rachel Sharp, Ymddiriedolaethau Natur Cymru / Wildlife Trusts Wales
Samuel Dorrington, Llywodraeth Cymru / Welsh Government
Gary Douch, lywodraeth Cymru / Welsh Government
Hilary Evans, Llywodraeth Cymru / Welsh Government
Caryn Le Roux, Llywodraeth Cymru / Welsh Government
Karen Stothard, Llywodraeth Cymru / Welsh Government
Alice Teague, Llywodraeth Cymru / Welsh Government

The Chair welcomed everyone to the meeting and provided an overview and agenda for the meeting.

The Chair reminded members to focus on delivering recommendations from the Biodiversity Deep Dive from a marine perspective.

Karen Stothard explained the purpose of the Deep Dive was to develop a set of collective actions to support the delivery of the 30 by 30 goal. The full presentation can be found at Annex 1. 

Caryn Le Roux introduced the morning’s workshops, the objective of the workshop was to:

• look at the recommendations and actions and make sure that the ‘success measures’ capture what CaSP Cymru is doing, as well as ensuring that CaSP Cymru are delivering on the 30 by 30 recommendations.
• Consider whether the recommendations change what CaSP is currently doing and whether the group needs to adjust anything.

Some of the discussion points from each theme related to the 30x30 recommendations were:

Capacity building

• CaSP provides a collaboration space to bring people together to identify what and where funding is needed. 
• Social science and socio-economic approaches are needed to support the whole system for nature recovery. 
• A better understanding of the capacity and capability in Wales is needed.
• Reskilling and training are an important area needing support and funding.

Ocean literacy

• The need to improve education and awareness of the nature and climate emergency links directly to Ocean Literacy.
• We still need to widen our audience, especially into the tourism and recreation field.
• The need for a series of actions to deliver a Team Wales approach and joining up with existing work areas.
• Ensuring the Sustainable Farming Scheme delivers for marine and coast.
• Linking into the wider landscape and freshwater habitats to deliver improvements for the marine and coastal areas.

Sustainable investment

• Need for mapping restoration work to identify opportunities to build resilience of marine ecosystems
• Connecting pathways to coast is very important.  Opportunity for payment for ecosystem services schemes to integrate land and sea.
• Invest in community engagement - communicate the benefits of action rather than focus on the negative impacts of climate change.  Modify language and terminology to make it more accessible to the public.
• Opportunity for citizen science to feed into this.
• Barriers to funding – need longer lead in times, multi-year and legacy funding, and to include funding for monitoring.
• Currently no standards are in place to effectively monitor the outcomes of nature-based solutions.
• Need for a dynamic funding suite to enable core funding and funding small projects to plug gaps.
• Opportunity for a SMEEF type approach in Wales – which allows net benefits and philanthropic or supply chain funding opportunities.
• Need to map out the various funding opportunities within and outside Wales.

All collated feedback from CaSP will feed back into the wider 30 x 30 action plan. The current CaSP delivery plan will be updated to reflect the 30x30 actions.

Moving forward updates will be published on the Wales Biodiversity Partnership website. The Minister for Climate Change will be making Oral and Written statements to update. Contact can be made with the core group through the marine champions Mike Elliott and Richard Unsworth, Alice or Caryn. 

Members were presented with progress made by the Ocean Literacy working group over the past year. A key priority for the group is developing an Ocean Literacy Strategy alongside an implementation plan, and not spend time developing a strategy without carrying out actions.  Kirsty shared the draft vison and list of action streams.  The full presentation can be found at Annex 1.  Discussion points:

• Members to feed back to Kirsty on the draft vision and actions streams. (ACTION ALL)
• Expertise on the OL Working group is primarily biodiversity focused, however the strategy is wider and therefore more membership is welcomed.
• There was support for getting the Ocean Literacy Strategy linked to the UN Decade of Ocean Activity programme – (ACTION – Emma McKinley to discuss with Kirsty)
• Peter to explore links to Ocean Literacy/Building Capacity crossover with National Nature Service and the Valleys Regional Park approach. (ACTION – Peter)
• Next Ocean Literacy meeting will take place on the 6^th of March in Aberystwyth Welsh Government Offices, with two further meetings to take place before July.
• Aim is to bring draft strategy back to members in the autumn to finalise by the end of the year.

Members received an update on the Sustainable Delivery of Nature’s Recovery research contract:  Following stakeholder engagement a series of internal workshops has been held with Finance Earth on a range of areas, including government interventions and supply side constraints.  The full report will be used to develop a clear policy position for Welsh Government on private investment as per the deep dive recommendations.

More broadly the Sustainable Investment Task and Finish group are developing a set of responsible investment principles like those developed in Scotland, which we will be looking at to ensure they are fit for marine purpose.

There are two main themes emerging from the Working Group. 

1. Mapping out what funding is available for what and where so that we are not duplicating other funds or projects.
2. Identify a clearer picture of what we want to fund.

Is it a nature-based solution that delivers towards biodiversity, community and socio-economic outcomes? Does the group need to consider a responsible financing mechanism to make sure that money invested in Wales actually delivers benefits within Wales and doesn't just end up potentially being greenwash. Where do we want to fund activities and what does good look like?

The group isn’t yet organised into workstreams, but the next meeting will be looking at how to address these issues.

A number of points were raised over other funding sources.  There are still lots of questions around the proposed Marine Recovery Fund (part of the offshore wind environmental improvement package, which is part of the British Energy Security Strategy.) It is as yet unclear how and if it will be available to us.

Mike Elliot suggested looking into the Horizon Europe projects.

The Championing Coastal Coordination (3Cs) project (Severn Estuary Partnership website) in England covering the Bristol Channel and Severn, aims to identify any potential gaps and prioritise outstanding action to help achieve a shared ambition of a resilient Bristol Channel and Severn which protects and enhances biodiversity, landscapes and ecosystems as a whole.

The project will be running stakeholder events and workshops, across a number of themes including a National Marine Park.

There are a number of projects in England designed to meet similar criteria to our concepts of community and coastal capacity building, therefore critical we remain connected and learn from the 3Cs project.

The Blue Foundation is leading on the Marine Park concept, which has community ownership at its heart.  There has been engagement across the UK.  There was a question as to whether Welsh Government are having discussions about developing marine parks in Wales as part of the OECM (Other Effective Conservation Measures) however, this wasn’t confirmed.  Peter agreed to feed into the OECM group in terms of the Marine Park work going on.  (ACTION – Peter)

Kirsty noted there is a lot of cross cutting action between the three themes and we need to avoid duplicating effort.  A more strategic approach is needed to think about cross overs and how the different themes are working and interconnected.  A workshop was suggested to understand in more detail what the funding/ocean literacy/capacity need is in Wales and where best to invest to enable the team Wales approach.  This could potentially be part of the June meeting.  Working group leads agreed to develop the idea further and bring back to the Partnership.  (ACTION – Peter, Kirsty, Gareth & Caryn).

Members were updated on the Wales Marine and Fisheries Scheme (WMFS). The WMFS includes work to address both sustainable investment and building capacity. The process is in two stages, applicants will first submit an expression of interest, if successful they will be invited to make a full application.

So far there have been two funding rounds. The first round was for Marketing Measures and there were six expressions of interest for that round.

The second round was for Energy Efficiency and Mitigation of Climate Change which closed last week for which 10 expressions of interest were received.

The Advisory Group, which is comprised of CaSP members, advise on the priorities for the next rounds.  The next Advisory Group meeting will be on 9^th March.

Gary explained that whilst he acknowledged the challenging lead-in times for the funding rounds, a six week window period for a targeted round is standard Welsh Government protocol, for this type of funding. 

Coastal Capacity Building Challenge fund

The evidence review has been published and is available at Coastal Community Capacity Building Evidence-Synthesis report | GOV.WALES. The report informed the Challenge Fund which provides support to improve environment outcomes and potentially increase demand for local seafood with strong sustainability credentials.  16 applications were received, of which 14 were successful, with a good spread of projects across Wales.  Gary agreed to circulate a list of successful projects to the group.  (ACTION – Gary to circulate details of successful projects)

Rachel requested a briefing be given to this group around continuation of the coastal capacities fund for the next two years, as this will help with having a more strategic conversation around funding, planning and time frames.  (ACTION – Secretariat to add to agenda)

Peter suggested a dedicated session to have a wider discussion about the capacity building process, bringing in some of the people practically engaged in that work, to share practice and expertise.  (ACTION – Peter and Gary to discuss at 9^th March meeting).

Kirsty Lindenbaum has supplied documents to provide updates from NRW.  Please see Annex 1.

Chair appointment:

• The advertisement for the chair appointment went live on 7^th February and will remain open until the 7^{th of} March. It was asked that everybody retweet and share the advertisement within their networks and to recommend the position to anyone they think would be interested in the post.
• After the closing date the applicants will be sifted, and interviews held.

Welsh Government Website:

• The Wales Coast and Seas partnership pages are live on the Welsh Government website: 

Wales Coasts and Seas Partnership (CaSP Cymru) 

Partneriaeth Moroedd ac Arfordiroedd Cymru (PMaA Cymru) 

• These pages include the shared narrative which has received a lot of logos from the group, however, please send your logo in if it is missing.

Project delivery plan:

• A project delivery plan has been created, to assist the working group leads and track actions and delivery.  This is in the form of an Excel spreadsheet, and not very useful to the wider group in its current state.  It will be shared later in the year and used to produce this year’s highlight report.   

Comms:

• Members will be updated between meetings, through a regular newsletter,  to minimise email overload.. These updates will go out on a weekly/or fortnightly basis depending on the relevance and number of updates and can include additional content from the wider partnership.
• Options are being explored for public facing platform, possibly a website. If anyone has any useful information on setting up such a platform, then please get in touch. In the meantime, please follow and re-tweet posts from our twitter handle @WG_Fisheries.
• The group discussed joining up comms and not duplicating efforts, as well as physical displays and leaflets to publicise the Partnership in future.

Kirsty suggested CaSP try and get a slot on the next Coastal Futures agenda to showcase the work this group is doing in Wales.  (ACTION – Peter to contact Natasha Bradshaw)

Round up of actions

• Members to feed back to Kirsty on the draft Ocean Literacy vision and action streams, see presentation in Annex 1 below. (ACTION ALL)
• Linking the Ocean Literacy Strategy and UN Decade of Ocean Activity programme – (ACTION – Emma McKinley to discuss with Kirsty)
• Peter to explore links to Ocean Literacy/Building Capacity crossover with National Nature Service and the Valleys Regional Park approach. (ACTION – Peter)
• Peter to feed into the OECM group in terms of the Marine Park work going on.  (ACTION – Peter)
• Continuation of the coastal capacities funding – briefing/presentation at next meeting.  (ACTION – Secretariat to add to agenda)
• Coastal Capacity Building Challenge fund (ACTION – Gary to circulate details of successful projects)
• A dedicated session to discuss the capacity building process. (ACTION – Peter and Gary to discuss at 9^th March meeting)
• Working group leads to develop a strategic approach to address cross overs and how the different streams are working and interconnected. (ACTION – Peter, Kirsty, Gareth & Caryn)
• CaSP try and get a slot on the next Coastal Futures agenda to showcase the work this group is doing in Wales.  (ACTION – Peter to contact Natasha Bradshaw)
• Please send your logo in to Samuel Dorrington if it is not present on the shared narrative.

CaSP Cymru Meetings:

6^th Mar – Ocean Literacy Meeting (plus 2 or 3 further meetings before July)

21^st Jun – 2^nd 2023 CaSP Cymru partnership meeting

5^th Oct – 3^rd 2023 CaSP Cymru partnership meeting

Other meetings:

28^th Feb – Clean Seas Partnership meeting

9^th Mar – Funding Policy Advisory Group

21 -22^nd Mar – Marine Energy Wales conference