IEEP UK authors: Holly Tomlinson, Kaley Hart and Edward Worsdell

In December 2025 Welsh Ministers selected their final indicators and targets for Sustainable Land Management (SLM) and laid them before the Senedd, where they were approved.   

These indicators and targets followed many of the recommendations and suggestions in the Welsh Government commissioned report by IEEP UK, UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (UKCEH) and the Countryside and Community Research Institute (CCRI) delivered via the Environment and Rural Affairs Modelling and Monitoring Programme (ERAMMP).

This report was the final part of a broader piece of SLM work commissioned by Welsh Government, which IEEP UK delivered in collaboration with UKCEH and CCRI.  Other outputs included the development of a Theory of Change Framework for SLM and analysis of monitoring and evaluation frameworks used elsewhere.   

SLM is the overall framework for the programme for post-Brexit agriculture in Wales introduced by the Agriculture (Wales) Act 2023. It includes, but is not limited to, the new farm support and agri-environment programme, the Sustainable Farming Scheme.  It covers four broad categories of sustainable production, resilient ecosystems, climate change mitigation and adaptation, and culture and Welsh language. The legal minimum requirement under the Act was for just four indicators and four associated targets.  However, both the project team and stakeholders felt that this would be inadequate to ensure the ambitions of SLM.  What we proposed and what was ultimately approved by the Senedd was much more comprehensive.   

You can access the full report on the ERAMMP website by clicking here.

Photo by Catrin Ellis on Unsplash