Connecting the Future - Nature Reserve Highlights

Key Project Highlights - Connecting Our Future

Paul Thornton, Reserves manager at WTSWW said, “The NNF1 project has been instrumental in enabling us to deliver conservation and habitat management solutions which had previously been thought impossible to deliver. It has also improved the accessibility and interpretation on our reserves and replaced exhausted tools and equipment enabling sustainable on going management.” 

•    WTSWW’s ‘Connecting the Future’ project work has focussed on high priority ash dieback work on a number of Wildlife Trust reserves including  Coed y Bwl, Coed y Bedw, Coed Dyrysiog, Coed Garnllwyd, Pwll y Wrach. Much of this work has been to make safe roadside 
•    There is now a new water supply and fencing at Lavernock Point to enable grazing of the grasslands trees.
•    The WTSWW team carried out work to prune and reduce the grown of a beech tree hedge growing on the field boundary between the east and the western meadow. The tree work is to reduce shading and leaf fall effects on the meadow as this may be a factor contributing to the decline of the small white orchid.
•    The project also allowed WTSWW to replace the old Skokholm Puffin Hide! Replacement of the existing 40 year old structure allows WTSWW’s long-term studies of Puffin survival, productivity and diet to continue, feeding into our monitoring of SPA features. The unique design will allow for unpresendented access to the Puffins breeding ecology and behavior without disturbance, via the artificial burrows built into the structure and two way glass. The islands seabird heritage will be better understood by visitors to Skokholm who will also benefit from use of the new hide and gain a unique understanding of these iconic seabirds.
•    One of the most exciting projects the Nature Networks Fund has enabled us to deliver has been at Llyn Fach, Rhigos. This SSSI nature reserve consists of Walesst southerly montane lake, cliff, heath and heath restoration on a former conifer plantation. The project has ben two-fold: 

1.    Protecting existing important habitats and species, such as Wilson’s filmy fern of the cliffs and water vole on the lake margins. The funding paid for specialist roped access contractors to work across the cliffs, scree slopes and steep ground removing Sitka spruce trees, both mature and seeding trees to samplings and hand pulling seedlings. These trees are a consequence of “seed rain” from forestry plantations above and threatened the fragile habitats on the slopes and those below.

2.    Enabling the introduction of conservation grazing to facilitate heath restoration; this open upland site could not be fenced and grazing solutions had previously not been considered viable. Nature Networks has paid for us to install handling and loading facilities, engage expert consultants for training, advice and finding an appropriate grazier with appropriate cattle and buying geofence collars.

Duncan Ludow, Reserves Manager for WTSWW said, “The Nature Network fund has been a massive boost for our reserves. The protected sites that WTSWW manages are important links in the ecological network of Wales. This funding has enabled us to improve the condition of the protected sites that we manage, and will help safeguard these special species and habitats for the future.”

All of this work, large or small, has contributed to the aims of the UK’s Wildlife Trust’s by helping to protect and restore UK habitats for the benefit of wildlife and future generations.