Senedd Election Manifestos, 2026: What’s good for restoring natural processes and rewilding?

The Future of Wales is on the Ballot

On 7th May, Wales goes to the polls for a landmark election. New electoral reforms mean Wales has a system of proportional representation, with 16 constituencies each electing six representatives. The Senedd itself will grow from 60 to 96 Members, significantly increasing the capacity for local voices to shape national policy. This is more than the start of the seventh Senedd term; it is the start of a new way of governing in Wales.

Your Voice, Your Nature, Your Wild Future

If you’re 16 or over, you have the power to decide the direction of our nation. Voting is the most direct way to tell the Government what truly matters to you.

Decisions on nature, land use, and our climate response are fully devolved. The Welsh Government has the budget and legislative power to determine whether nature recovers or continues to decline across Wales.

A Vision for a Wilder Wales

Do you imagine a future that is wilder, richer in biodiversity, and full of opportunity for local communities? We believe rewilding is the heartbeat of that vision—a vital tool for restoring our exhausted landscapes, regenerating our rural economies and revitalising our rural communities.

To help you make an informed choice, we have summarised the main political party manifestos. We’ve looked past the headline commitments to find the pledges that could truly set us on the “Welsh Way to Wild.”

“Restoring nature is one of the highest-return investments available.” — Professor Nathalie Seddon, National Security Briefing, 2026

It falls to all of us to speak up for nature and to hold our new representatives to account. As Natural Resources Wales highlighted in their 2025 State of Natural Resources Report:

“Wales is not starting from scratch. We already have strong foundations in place. Our challenge is not a lack of laws or powers—the challenge is how we use them.”

Read the Welsh Way to Wild report for our policy recommendations Here.

Wales Green Party

The Green Party offers the most explicit commitment to rewilding, focusing on systemic changes and a “no regression” principle to ensure environmental protections aren’t watered down by future governments.

National Rewilding Strategy: A dedicated plan to support ecosystem restoration, including the reintroduction of native species and habitat restoration on public land.
30×30 Commitment: Protecting 30% of Welsh land, freshwater, and seas by 2030, with 10% of seas fully protected from all damaging activities.
Marine Protection: Banning seabed trawling and dredging in protected areas; restoration of saltmarshes, seagrass, and oyster reefs.
Land Reform Act: Introducing a Welsh Right to Roam and a “community right to buy,” enabling a shift toward the decisions make on land toward local people.
Land Use Framework: A strategic guide to balance food security, carbon storage, and biodiversity.
Institutional Support: Reforming National Parks to make biodiversity recovery a core purpose and properly resourcing Natural Resources Wales (NRW).

Welsh Labour

Labour provides comprehensive structural detail, building on existing progress. Their focus is on taskforces and legally binding targets.

Rewilding Taskforce: Specifically for urban communities to bring nature into towns and cities – but not mention of how rewilding can feature in our rural landscapes.
Species Reintroduction: Clear support for beavers and other native species.
Legally Binding Targets: Setting nature recovery targets in law by 2027 through the secondary targets of the new Environmental Principles, Governance and Biodiversity Act.
Nature Estates Cymru: A forum for large landowners to coordinate large-scale nature recovery.
Game Bird Review: Reviewing the release of 0.8–2.3 million non-native game birds that currently pressure native ecosystems.
Green Jobs: Funding to build skills in flood defence and marine restoration.

Plaid Cymru

Plaid’s manifesto avoids “rewilding” language, focusing instead on “nature-rich landscapes” and community-led restoration.

Marine Protection: Strong on completing Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and collaborative working with stakeholders. Specific mention of phasing out bottom trawling, but no details on any “no-take zones” and timescales involved.
Climate and Nature Action Plan: Prioritizing the protection of existing nature-rich areas, but doesn’t commit to designating more areas, connecting or enlarging existing ones. and there is no indication of where restoration features – we need to bring more land in for nature to reach 30% on land.
National Seagrass Plan: A specific commitment to one of Wales’ most vital carbon-sequestering habitats. No detail on other marine restoration actions, such as Oyster.
Rural Development: Using community right-to-buy and agroforestry (right tree, right place) to build resilience.
The Gap: No mention of keystone species (like beavers) or explicit rewilding strategies.

Welsh Conservatives

Focus on Food and Infrastructure The Conservative platform lacks a clear commitment to reversing nature loss, focusing instead on sewage management and increasing food production over biodiversity.

The “Wildlife” Pledge: A £20 million commitment to nature, which is significantly lower than the estimated £438 million annual funding gap needed to meet current targets.
Potential Risks: Scrapping the Sustainable Farming Scheme (SFS) could create massive uncertainty for land managers and the loss of on farm nature areas and removes the opportunity to secure nature recovery within the optional and collaborative layers. This would secure the current status quo in how nature is prioritised meaning it continues to decline.
Institutional Change: Replacing NRW with an “independent regulator” could strip away its land management functions (NRW currently manages 7% of Wales).

Reform UK

A “Rural Pursuits” Focus Reform’s manifesto mirrors many Conservative points but adds detail on the diversification of the rural economy. “Nature” is absent. With no mention of nature targets and restoration on either the land or sea.

Support for Small Abattoirs: positive for rewilding, as local processing supports the low-intensity, natural-grazing animals (pigs/cattle) used in rewilding projects.
Potential Risks: Abolishing NRW and ending general license reviews for game birds. This could lead to an increase in sport shooting, with an influx of non-native species, further undermining native nature recovery.

Welsh Liberal Democrats

While the Lib Dems support “close-to-nature” approaches, their timeline is decades away and too long-term to solve today’s problems. There is no mention of rewilding in their manifesto.

Blue Corridors: Support for connected water-based habitats and catchment-based flood resilience.
Nature-Based Solutions: Acknowledging the role of nature in carbon storage and flood prevention.
The Concern: A target of 2050 for nature recovery. Without interim targets, this horizon is too distant to address the current ecological crisis.

What is Missing Across the Board?

Even with the strong commitments from the Greens and Labour, several key elements are missing from the national conversation to make rewilding truly successful in Wales:

Landscape Connectivity: While many mention “30×30,” there is little detail on the vision and the actions that will drive this change.
Keystone Species Ambition: Beyond beavers, there is a silence on other missing keystone species (such as pine martens, wildcats, white storks, or white-tailed eagle) that drive ecosystem health.
Long-term Financial Certainty: The funding gap is massive (nearly £440m). No party has fully explained how to bridge this gap through a mix of public funding and regulated private “green” investment.
Marine “No-Take” Zones: While “protection” is mentioned, the specific designation of highly protected marine areas (where no extraction of any kind is allowed) remains under-defined by the majority of parties.
Urban-Rural Integration: Rewilding is not just the dream of urban dwellers -who are the majority of people – to be gifted by those privileged enough to own land -the minority who own the majority. Rewilding is for the whole of Wales. Rewilding is about making our landscapes wilder and reconnecting more people to wilder nature. Genuine recognition that the decisions made about our landscapes and nature affect us all is sadly absent from the manifestos of all the political parties.

So What Can I Do?

Show your support for nature to candidates across all parties by completing our Rewilding the Election campaign, here.

Download and read our report and help spread the work – rewilding is repeopling and it is a powerful solution for the recovery of nature and us in turn.