Working Together for our Environment

Monmouthshire EPB bioblitz “We Count for Wildlife” at Castle Meadows Abergavenny 2014

Who We Are 
Led by the County Council, the Monmouthshire Environment Partnership Board brings together representatives of the key organisations originally responsible for shaping and delivering the environmental content of the county’s Community Strategy, which was replaced in 2013 by Monmouthshire Local Service Board’s Single Integrated Plan.

The Board first met in 2004 and holds about four meetings a year. The member organisations are the Brecon Beacons National Park Authority, Natural Resources Wales, Gwent Wildlife Trust, Monmouthshire County Council (Countryside, Environmental Health, Planning Policy, Sustainability, Waste), Monmouthshire GreenWeb, SE Wales Energy Agency, and the Wye Valley AONB. Other organisations are invited to meetings when they will assist the business of the Board. Sub-groups, often involving other organisations, are formed to pursue particular tasks.

The Aims of the Board

• To foster communication between the relevant environmental organisations at a strategic level;
• To help make partnership projects happen and to promote working together for the benefit of the county;
• To assist the identification of environmental needs and action priorities of the people of Monmouthshire;
• To contribute to the environmental aims, priorities and project programme of the Single Integrated Plan;
• To monitor performance in delivering our Action Plan and other relevant action programmes.

Reaching the Community
No wider Environment Partnership has yet been formally established but the Board is aware of the county’s many other community environmental groups. We keep in touch with them via our member organisations and other forums, using GreenWeb and press releases as a means of communication, and arranging occasional events.

Notes (pdf) of the Board’s most recent meeting can be found here EPB Minutes 19 June 2014.

The Board has adopted a strategy and plan entitled ‘Environmental Objectives and Action Plan’ (pdf document) EPBPolicy&APSept 2014FINAL which summarises the main objectives of organisations engaged in the protection and enhancement of the Monmouthshire environment, together with the Board’s own Action Plan.

Our Key Action Areas 
The Board’s Action Plan includes projects in the following areas has identified five key project areas:

• Climate change, peak oil and energy;
• Waste;
• Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship;
• Landscape-scale Biodiversity and Land Management;
• Involved and Active.

Board members or sub-groups are following up these topics.

The Board organises events from time to time with its partners and others.  In 2012 it agreed to arrange a series of 3 public bioblitz events “We Count for Wildlife”, held at Caldicot in 2013, Abergavenny in 2014 and Monmouth in 2015.  The aim is to encourage a greater appreciation of the range of wildlife species that inhabit well used local urban countryside sites, support local environmental groups and increase the biodiversity records for these sites which will influence future management of them.

For further information about the work of the Board contact the Coordinator –  Sue Parkinson