Wildlife Trusts Wales

Wildlife Trusts Wales represents the six individual wildlife trusts operating across Wales. Their work on nature recovery is substantially funded through Welsh Government programmes, making them a direct beneficiary and implementer of devolved environmental policy.

Wildlife Trusts Wales illustrates how devolution creates a funding and delivery ecosystem for environmental policy that is distinctly Welsh. By partnering with the Welsh Government on landscape-scale nature recovery programmes, the Trusts channel devolved funding into practical conservation work across Wales. This partnership model — where the Welsh Government sets policy and provides funding, while NGOs deliver on the ground — is a characteristic feature of devolved governance that has no equivalent at UK level for Wales-specific environmental priorities. The Trusts' dependence on Welsh Government funding aligns their institutional interests with the continuation and expansion of devolution, making them stakeholders in the settlement's success. Their green investment work also connects to the broader economic argument for devolution: that Welsh natural assets should be managed for Welsh benefit through Welsh institutions.