Hey, can you hear me?
Last September we gathered together with community organisers, policy makers and influencers, as well as planners and lawyers to reflect upon the Aarhus Convention, and to share our experiences of being involved in deciding what happens, where.
In June 1998, the UNECE Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (the Aarhus Convention) was signed by the UK.
The first article of the convention states:
“In order to contribute to the protection of the right of every person of present and future generations to live in an environment adequate to his orher health and well-being, each Party shall guarantee the rights of access to information, public participation in decision-making, and access to justicein environmental matters in accordance with the provisions of this Convention.”
…that means that we should ALL be heard in decisions that are made that affect the environment.
You can read the Aarhus insight report here - you might find some of the experiences familiar!
Every year in Wales there are around 25,000 development decisions - councils’ consent to new houses being built; new roads are proposed by highways. That's a LOT of changes to our environment and the places in which we live. We are also living with the decisions that have been made in the past - all the homes already built, the roads, the railways, the reservoirs, the power stations, the coal mines...
We've got a stake in these decisions, and our laws in Wales should help to protect the environment by giving us a voice.
Rights Community Action worked with Assembly Members to put our voice back in. We did this through putting in open floor hearings for decision-making processes on major infrastructure in the recent Infrastructure Wales Bill, which passed earlier this month in the Senedd. We also helped ensure that climate change is part of the consideration for consenting decisions.
Now the debate is on the Environmental Principles, Governance and Biodiversity targets for a Greener Wales. A new body is being proposed that will oversee environmental laws in Wales and also create a way of being able to deal with the failures of the system.
It's really important that when making our laws stronger to protect the environment we don't forget that in doing so, we have to make our voices louder, and make sure we have the spaces we need to speak.
