National Infrastructure Commission for Wales: Nature Guardian

Summary

In 2025, the National Infrastructure Commission for Wales (NICW) undertook a six-month pilot to test a novel governance intervention: the appointment of a “Nature Guardian” to participate directly in Commission discussions. The Nature Guardian was embedded in the Commission’s deliberative processes, participating in meetings, discussions, and reflections alongside other Commissioners.

The pilot was not intended to produce immediate policy change, nor to offer a definitive model for nature-centered governance. Instead, it was designed as a practical experiment to explore what happens when nature is treated not as a policy concern, but as a stakeholder with a voice in decision-making. Their question was “what changes when nature is explicitly present as a participant in our deliberations?”

The National Infrastructure Commission for Wales is an independent, non-statutory advisory body established in 2018 to provide impartial, long-term advice to Welsh Ministers on Wales’ strategic economic and environmental infrastructure needs over a 5–80 year horizon. As an advisory body, NICW does not take decisions on specific infrastructure projects in Wales or set policy. Rather, it engages in exploratory work and research, which inform recommendations that are made to Welsh Government.

The Pilot Project
In October 2024, NICW recommended to the Welsh Government that nature be given a voice in decision-making for flood policy and implementation. Following this recommendation, NICW decided to investigate how they could incorporate a Commissioner to represent the voice of nature within its own governance, rather than waiting for statutory reform or external mandates.

In January 2026, NICW released a report on its 6-month Nature Governance pilot project. This case study documents why NICW chose to run the pilot, how it was designed and implemented, what has begun to shift as a result, and what challenges and open questions remain.

“The central finding is not that the pilot has “solved” the challenge of delivering better outcomes for nature, but that it has triggered the forging of a new path – altering how questions are asked, how trade-offs are surfaced, and how responsibility is understood. The presence of a Nature Guardian moved nature from being a background consideration to something explicitly present in the room. This shift was subtle and uneven – but real.”

Challenges and Recommendations
The pilot raised a number of tensions for wider consideration.
Timing: Early involvement is key to ensure that input genuinely contributes to decision making, rather than being seen as being “too late”, an after-thought, or as a hinderance.
Design matters: A Nature Guardian role needs to be tailored to the specific context with attention to structure, purpose, scope, and support.
Representation and legitimacy: Can any one person meaningfully represent the whole of “nature”? Who authorizes a Nature Guardian, and on what basis?
Broaden the lens: No single guardian can purport to speak for all of nature, either from a legitimacy perspective or an expertise perspective. Nature Guardians do not need to make decisions “on behalf of nature”. They can add value by opening up the space and broadening the lens of the discussion, through thoughtful questions and drawing on multiple perspectives and sources of information — scientific, cultural, local, and Indigenous.

Impact Statement

The pilot broadly points to the need for continued exploration of how governance systems can better reflect the interests of nature and future generations, particularly in the context of long-term infrastructure planning. For NICW, next steps include considering the future of the role, and exploring ways to embed greater plurality and accountability, whilst continuing evaluation over a longer time horizon.

Involved Organizations

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