'Yes' and 'no' is going to be my answer to this, because we've been keeping a very good eye on the evidence that you've been receiving this morning, and turning it over ourselves as well. I think what we're clear on is that the environment and rural affairs monitoring and modelling programme says a couple of things. First of all, as the committee will know, the majority of our soil in Wales is actually under grassland pasture, and grassland pasture is a particular characteristic. When it's in good shape and it's being farmed well, it's a good store, if it's maintained well, of carbon, to a certain element. It has limited capacity to increase, by the way, its carbon storage, but it's an interesting area of discussion. But it needs to be really well maintained. But the majority is pastureland—lush, green pastureland, except for the dry weather we're having at the moment; we need a bit more rain again now.
But of course, then we've got two areas, which are the areas we need to really focus on, which ERAMMP does show, which are the issues of peatland and also arable farming land as well, which is not, by the way—I'll just come back to this—the majority of our green, pleasant landscape there in Wales. So, broadly, our soils are actually in a relatively good position, but we're very aware that there are localised and very specific issues, some of which I've just described.
So, the main threats that we've got to soils, which ERAMMP has picked up—and, by the way, just to say, ERAMMP is leading edge in terms of the analysis that we do across the whole of the UK; we're glad that we've got it—it shows that the bigger three are: compaction, erosion and excess nutrients. So, ERAMMP does actually show—and this is why my answer to you is a 'yes' and 'no'—ERAMMP actually shows, very clearly, that there is stabilisation across many of the environmental indicators at the national scale. Most indicators of soil quality at the national scale—and, again, I say to committee members, 'soil quality', and that needs to be unpacked as well; this is a complex area—they remain stable, but some are in decline: localised issues and specific issues. So, the national topsoil carbon concentration, Chair, overall, remains stable, but the carbon in soils under arable land use is in decline, and the driver for this we are investigating. So, the great thing is that ERAMMP has shown us it's in the arable area and that's under investigation.
The ERAMMP 'Wales National Trends and Glastir Evaluation' doesn't actually say that Glastir had a lack of impact on soil quality. What Glastir has delivered is that stability that we're looking for, that maintenance of the indicators of soil quality. I think the challenge is, when somebody says, 'Yeah, but it hasn't done it even better', I guess what we would say is—sorry, straight layperson's terms here—when you've got well-managed, good, green pastureland that is well farmed and well managed, there is limited capacity there to improve it. What there is capacity to do is maintain it well. And what the ERAMMP report shows very clearly, and Glastir shows, is that that has been a success of it. It hasn't improved carbon stores, or improved this, that—and there are more things that we can do—but it's actually created stability.