Marina Martin Maroto placement – Welsh Government

This year I had the fantastic opportunity of joining the International Biodiversity policy team within the Wales government to inform the development of environmental targets.

The team is responsible for the development of the Welsh Government’s biodiversity policy, specifically the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Global Biodiversity Framework. They are part of the Biodiversity Programmes branch which leads on terrestrial biodiversity policy, including work streams such as the Nature Networks programme, the Section 6 Duty, 30×30, nature finance, and contributions to policy under the Sustainable Farming Scheme.

My placement gave me the opportunity to take part in various aspects of the policy-making process. As such, I helped develop a new emerging target for the Welsh government, looking at the impacts of light pollution on biodiversity. I collated an evidence paper following up on a previous literature review looking at evidence for the effects of light pollution and also the measures already established within Wales. We then presented this information for review by the Deputy First Minister and got approval to develop it as a target. I then created a suite of potential targets working together with people within my team and other experts from the Welsh Government such as those from the Marine Division, 30×30 and Strategic Evidence. We created a solid evidence-base and a set of follow-up actions for target development.

Although very different from my research topic, I found this experience extremely fulfilling. My project looks at how bird species adapt to urbanisation and although it has a very tangible link to the natural world, it is very different from direct conservation or ecological work. I therefore really valued the opportunity to learn more about how environmental policy operates, how targets are chosen based on priority, how scientific research is implemented into policy, and how many different people from a range of fields collaborate to produce targets.

I felt like the work being carried out within the Targets team is very impactful and I am grateful that I got to be a part of it. I think this may be something I consider as a future career and is probably something I would have never considered if I had not done a placement!