Getting started with the section 6 Biodiversity Duty

Getting started with the section 6 Biodiversity Duty

Preliminary steps

Read the Introduction to the Biodiversity and Resilience of Ecosystems Duty and the Frequently Asked Questions for Section 6 guidance and decide how biodiversity is relevant to your organisation through its day to day activities, policies, plans, programmes and projects. These initial steps will help explain why biodiversity is important to your organisation and how the actions of individuals and the organisation as a whole can contribute to maintaining and enhancing biodiversity.

The Nature Recovery Action Plan for Wales lists six objectives which should be used to help with establishing your biodiversity priorities and actions together with the section 7 lists of priority habitats and species in Wales, the State of Natural Resources Report (SoNaRR) and (when published) Area Statements.

Further guidance on this can be found on the GoodPractice Page.

Who should take the lead?

Responsibility for compliance lies with the final decision-making body, or the head of the organisation. It should then be possible through their lead to promote awareness of biodiversity throughout the organisation.

This will help integrate biodiversity within the core work of your organisation and embed biodiversity values and benefits into decision making.

Get the right people involved

Ideally, you will need either a person or a team in the organisation to coordinate the planning and action. You can make use of any existing actions, delivery structures and capacity for biodiversity planning within your organisation ensuring this is fully embedded and fit for purpose under the s6 duty. However, it is important to note that one of the primary purposes of the duty is to embed biodiversity considerations throughout each public authority so that each and every employee can contribute.

You can contact the Wales Biodiversity Partnership who can provide or direct you to further advice and guidance.

Communicate

Promoting awareness of and embedding biodiversity throughout the public authority is crucial to complying with the s6 duty. Involve colleagues in what’s happening, seek opinions and raise awareness of the issues.

Here are some of the types of information that you could share on a regular basis to promote biodiversity awareness and maintain interest:

1. Your organisation’s biodiversity policy, objectives and targets.
2. Information that explain biodiversity through internal communication channels and leaflets.
3. Key achievements, progress and success stories.
4. Ways to get involved and reminders of the little things that can help achieve a lot in local biodiversity conservation.

Examples of all of these can be found on the GoodPractice page.