SoNaRR 2025: Opportunities for action

Based on our evidence from the ecosystems, natural resources and all Wales aims assessments, the opportunities for action are clear and must be pursued at every scale:

• Local scale: empowering people and communities to adopt sustainable and healthy lifestyles, enhance green infrastructure, and participate in ecosystem restoration.
• Regional scale: place-based approaches such as catchment solutions including natural flood management, riparian buffers, and woodland expansion to address interconnected environmental risks.
• National scale: aligning political and policy frameworks with the climate and nature emergency, investing in skills, infrastructure, and innovation to support a regenerative economy.

This concluding chapter sets the foundation for the actions that must follow and must be bold, integrated, and inclusive if Wales is to thrive within the limits of its natural systems and secure a prosperous future for generations to come.

Toward a sustainable future

Wales already benefits from strong legal and regulatory foundations for enabling people and nature to thrive together. To accelerate implementation, we must adopt adaptive management through monitoring, evaluating, and iterating based on the best available evidence. While uncertainty remains across scales and ecosystems, time is short: urgency, agility, and innovation are essential. Decision-making should go beyond cost-benefit ratios to reflect the full value of nature and its many benefits. Strengthening Area Statements and applying the framework for the sustainable management of natural resources will be critical to guide choices and maximise impact.

The main pressures driving degradation of ecosystems and compromising their resilience, usually combined, are being driven by climate change, pollution, and land and sea use. Urban areas, though only covering 6% of the land, exert disproportionate demand on ecosystems and experience the most severe climate impacts. Careful planning and impact assessment are essential to ensure interventions deliver multiple benefits for people and nature without creating new pressures elsewhere. Changing habits and reconnecting people with nature requires better information, equal access to high-quality green and blue spaces, community engagement, and an economy focused on repair, reuse, and responsible consumption.

The greatest opportunities for action at scale, which have potential to generate most impact across multiple ecosystems and natural resources are in agriculture and land management. These must adapt to deliver goods and services alongside wider benefits for ecosystems and health, while supporting thriving businesses. Incentives, community support, and economic opportunities linked to environmental stewardship will foster a culture of positivity and social cohesion.

New mechanisms to provide payment for provision of public goods can be a catalyst for transforming agriculture and land management into systems that deliver food, ecosystem health, and economic resilience. By embedding sustainability into supply chains, aligning public and private investment, and supporting community-led initiatives, these mechanisms can make environmental stewardship a driver of thriving businesses. High-integrity nature-based solutions, nature markets and innovative approaches such as stacking benefits will scale impact, while regenerative tourism and community-driven projects can help ensure that prosperity and restoration go hand in hand.

Climate adaptation will require better planning of our infrastructure, as well as our conservation actions. Developing our understanding of ecosystem resilience using indicators embedded within Resilient ecological network (REN) and Sustainable land management frameworks will be fundamental to nature recovery and climate adaptation. Effective implementation to enhance ecosystem resilience will connect fragmented habitats and enable species movement as environmental conditions shift. Changing climate patterns are likely to bring new species and alter ecosystems, requiring flexible planning and use of best available information to ensure RENs stay current and facilitate action. Expanding, managing, and safeguarding habitats through RENs, while embedding them into spatial planning, ensures that major programmes such as woodland creation, peatland restoration, infrastructure planning and house building, and flood risk management actively strengthen connectivity and resilience.

We must seek synergies between actions to address the climate and nature crises wherever possible, but with finite land and resources, trade-offs and difficult choices are unavoidable. Investments in transport, housing, and green energy will require space, yet current systems for food production, energy generation, and transportation of goods is driving unprecedented decline in species. For example, urban expansion can lead to the loss of best and most versatile agricultural land, reducing the capacity of local food production. At the same time, there are opportunities for win-wins. For example, restoring nature in Less Favoured Areas, where sustainable land management can deliver carbon storage, biodiversity recovery, and cultural benefits while supporting rural livelihoods.

Policymakers must resist short-term fixes and avoid paralysis in the face of complexity. The challenge is not whether to act, but how to act boldly and collaboratively. Integrated strategies, grounded in robust evidence and co-designed with communities, are essential to navigate competing interests and deliver long-term gains for climate, nature, and society. Wales has the chance to lead by example turning ambition into action and ensuring that every decision counts toward a sustainable future.

This chapter sets the foundation for the actions that must follow and must be bold, integrated, and inclusive if Wales is to thrive within the limits of its natural systems and secure a prosperous future for generations to come.

Read the full Opportunities for action chapter in our State of Natural Resources Report 2025.

Bridges to the future

The forward-looking briefing Bridges to the Future – a Briefing for Policy and Place Makers will distil these clear messages for Wales: choices made today by government, business, and communities can raise living standards, strengthen resilience, and restore nature by redesigning the systems that meet our everyday needs.

Bridges to the future - Will be published in January 2026