Coetir Anian - Cambrian Wildwood

Habitats

Peatland restoration at Bwlch Corog continues to progress well. Planted sphagnum moss is now spreading successfully across target areas, creating patches of healthy bog vegetation and supporting upland biodiversity. Water vole signs were recorded at several of the restored pools, alongside tadpoles and dragonflies.

Over the winter, approximately 300 native tree saplings were planted in targeted locations as part of our ongoing work to increase woodland and wood pasture. One hundred were protected using reusable cattle-proof guards, while others were planted in areas where grazing animals are excluded. Tree stock and guards were funded by the Nature Networks Fund and The Woodland Investment Grant, both supported by Welsh Government.

Selective thinning of the larch plantation resumed in March with local contractors, including former trustee Kara and Walkabout Ed, extracting timber for on-site use. Some timber was milled into planks using a mobile sawmill, with the remainder set aside as seasoned firewood or for building materials. Trees located further from the track were extracted by Carnog Working Horses. This work is supported by the National Forest for Wales Landscape Pilot, administered by WCVA through the Ceredigion Local Nature Partnership.

A new mower has been trialled with promising results, successfully cutting through dense Molinia tussocks. Used in combination with grazing, this approach is expected to reduce Molinia dominance and encourage a wider range of upland species.

Grazing by our trustee and neighbour’s cattle will resume shortly, with the animals due to return from their winter pasture. Their browsing and trampling are vital for managing bracken, bramble and Molinia in sensitive areas.

Ecologist Stuart Hedley conducted habitat monitoring focused on the bog and heath areas. Stuart has surveyed Bwlch Corog over many years and was encouraged by the improvement in ecological indicators across the site. He noted particularly positive progress in the restored peatland vegetation scrapes, where translocated sphagnum moss and cross-leaved heath (Erica tetralix) are now establishing well. These early signs of increased diversity are a strong indication that our land management interventions are moving the habitats in the right direction.

Species

In late March, local lepidopterist Phil McGregor visited Bwlch Corog to carry out a spring moth survey. Two species new to the site were recorded using light traps set in the larch plantation and the Celtic rainforest. These traps attract moths without causing harm; individuals are released after identification. The new records were a striking macro-moth, the Yellow Horned (Achlya flavicornis, or Tant Cyrn Melyn in Welsh), and a micro-moth, Diurnea fagella, also known as the Early Reveller or Tiwbig Mawrth. These discoveries bring the total number of moth species recorded at Bwlch Corog to 202.

Community Activities

Youth activities have continued through the Nature Ambassadors programme, offering participants a range of seasonal tasks and outdoor learning opportunities. Young people were involved in practical conservation activities such as planting trees, creating insect habitats, and learning about local wildlife.

Several school groups visited the site during the spring term. Activities included woodland and wetland exploration, nature-based games, and environmental learning. Sessions were tailored to the needs of different groups, including pupils with additional learning needs.

Preparations are underway for a series of community events, including a family spring celebration and the annual Open Day on Sunday 11 May.

We have also hosted a range of talks and visits, including a visit from Bangor University MSc Environmental Forestry students, and a talk to undergraduate students from Aberystwyth University’s Environmental Science course. Both sessions focused on our approach to landscape-scale habitat restoration and community engagement. We also gave a presentation to the Wildlife Trusts Wales Upland Network meeting, sharing insights from our work on ecological connectivity across multiple landholdings.

Volunteers

Regular volunteer days have continued across the site, contributing to tasks including tree planting, vegetation clearance, path improvements, and species surveys. Horse logging also offered opportunities for volunteers and visitors to learn about traditional methods and low-impact woodland management.

Most of the winter’s tree planting work was carried out by volunteers. In addition to planting, they assembled and deployed steel tree guards, helped with ecological monitoring, split and stacked firewood, and prepared materials for the construction of the new education shelter. One particularly productive day in January saw volunteers from Aberystwyth University’s Conservation Volunteers, Wolverhampton City of Sanctuary, and our regular local team working together to transport, assemble and install 75 steel tree guards on the upland – three quarters of the total for the whole winter. This is tough, physical work in difficult terrain, and we simply couldn’t get through it without the commitment and energy of our volunteers. Their contribution continues to be vital to the delivery of our habitat restoration and infrastructure projects.

Partnerships

In early 2025, we began delivery of our new Nature Networks Fund project, focused on the next phase of habitat restoration at Bwlch Corog. This includes additional woodland expansion, habitat enhancement and community engagement.

Development work also began on the Integrated Natural Resources Scheme (INRS), a Welsh Government pilot initiative to support collaborative land management. Our new landowner group – Cwmwd Einion – includes five neighbouring holdings around the Pen Carreg Gopa SSSI. Over the next three years, the group aims to improve upland habitat condition and connectivity through changes to grazing, tree planting, peatland restoration and access improvements.

Staff Changes

We said goodbye to two members of staff in March: Lora (Project Officer) and Neil (Habitats and Species Manager). Both have played a key role in managing Bwlch Corog and supporting our volunteer and youth programmes. Lora is taking up a new position as Ranger on Handa Island in northwest Scotland, while Neil has returned to RSPB Ynys-hir. He will continue to support Coetir Anian on a freelance basis where possible. We are very grateful to them both for their dedication and expertise.

Following the departure of two trustees announced in December 2024, we are now recruiting new trustees to join our board.

Big Give Green Match Fund Campaign

Donations are an essential part of how we fund our activities, and we are excited to announce our participation in the Big Give Green Match Fund campaign from April 22 to April 29. During this period, all donations made to our campaign will be doubled by Big Give, meaning your contribution will have twice the impact. If you believe in the importance of our work and would like to support us, this is the perfect time to donate. Simply visit our campaign page during the campaign week, and your donation will go even further in supporting our conservation efforts and community engagement initiatives. Your support truly makes a difference, and we’re grateful for any contributions you can make.

Staff Changes

We have had a number of staff changes in 2024 but now are fully staffed with a team of 7. Our newest members of the team are: Cian Llywelyn, Communications and Heritage Development Manager, and Rachael Davey, Finance and Administration Officer.

Habitats

This autumn we have continued with our programme of larch thinning in our PAWS (plantation on Ancient Woodland Site) with felling of up to 5m3 in September and in November. In September we have extracted around 30 larch poles from the woodland using working horses, who then dragged the poles to our education area, where our volunteers have cleaned the bark off them and they are being used to build a new frame for a canvas firepit shelter to be used by our gropus. Larch thinning helps to let in light to benefit the understorey of plants, mosses and lichens. In time, the thinning will allow natural regeneration of native trees, and the woodland will return to a native broadleaf woodland type.

We have also cleared bramble from some areas of our ancient woodland with volunteers, to let in the light to the understorey and encourage a diversity of woodland plants, moss and lichen to flourish.

Funding from TWIG (The Woodland Investment Grant) has allowed us to continue our work improving footpaths through the woodlands this summer, including installing a set of steps which create a safe route down to our river so our groups can explore safely.   TWIG has also paid for a new log store to house the firewood which we have produced from the larch felled on site last winter. The wood is nicely seasoning and drying in the new log store to be used next year.

This summer we have carried out additional mowing of the molinia on our uplands, and re-mown the trails through the molinia. Our neighbour has as usual grazed his cows on our site, to help with diversifying vegetation. 11 cows were on site this summer from June until November, grazing the peatlands until october and then spending a month in the woodlands in November. This year we have purchased no-fence collars for the cows, which allow us to create virtual fences and concentrate the grazing on the most important places. The combined effect of mowing paths to allow grazing animals to trample and eat the molinia appears to be an effective method of increasing plant diversity while only having to mow once.

This autumn we have collected heather seeds from our site, and planted them in some of the drier areas of peatland that were scraped of vegetation in 2022. The aim of this is to diversify the vegetation further, cover any remaining areas of bare peat, and extend the area of high quality wet heath on site.

We are pleased that we have recently been awarded a second peatland development grant. This grant will fund peatland surveys in partnership with neighbouring landowners. Through this project, we will contract local ecological surveyors, with the aim of providing those landowners who work with us, with detailed knowledge of the extent and condition of their peatland, and how it could be restored.

Species

The exciting discovery of this summer was a population of water voles on our uplands, which we were previously not aware of. Water voles are threatened in much of the UK, including our area, by the growing presence of American mink, a non-native species. In many parts of our local area they have recently gone extinct due to mink, so their presence on our site is very welcome. Unfortunately the surveyor also found evidence of mink on site, so we are currently devising a plan to control the mink. The water vole are thriving on our uplands in many parts of site, including in the new pools which were created when our peatland was rewetted and ditches blocked.

We have recently deployed a trail camera to see what species we can find on site, and our Project Officer Lora was delighted to capture footage of a pine marten. Pine martens are known to be in the wider area, as they were reintroduced to mid Wales about 30 miles from our site, and have successfully spread throughout the area. This is the first evidence we have of pine martens at Bwlch Corog.

Community Activities

This summer two 5-day youth camps were held on site in partnership with social care support organisations, one for young carers and one for young refugees and asylum seekers. The young people benefitted from connection with nature, group activities and a break from their regular lives, many of which have difficult circumstances.

In September an over night Wild Days Out camp was held for teenagers from the local community.

Our Nature Ambassadors programme has continued this autumn with two groups of young people visiting regularly, from secondary schools in nearby Machynlleth and Aberystwyth. The children aged 12-17 have experienced a variety of nature related activities and have tried volunteering activities including planting heather seeds on peatland, stacking firewood, and clearing bramble in the woodland.

Our primary school visits have also continued this autumn with nine schools currently part of the programme. One school has visited in autumn 2024 for a bushcraft and firelighting day.

Our refugee and asylum seeker activitiy programme in partnership with City of Sanctuary (Wolverhampton), with funding from the Wild Isles fundraising appeal, has gone from strength to strength this year, with 2 nature wellbeing days and an overnight camp, for refugee families with young children. These members of our community are often traumatised by their experiences, leading to poor mental health - many have no experience of living in a city and miss the countryside deeply. Being in nature can relax and inspire, offering brief respite from day to day worries. Therefore, working with our friends at City of Sanctuary in Wolverhampton, we offer the chance to come on a nature well-being day or a short camp, and experience conservation activities, nature crafts, woodland games, bushcraft skills and cooking. This summer we have run two activity days and one overnight camp for this group.

In September we held a community tree seed saving event, with a workshop on successful tree seed collection, storage and propogation. We collected crab apple and birch seeds which will be grown into saplings by a local tree nursery.

Volunteers

Our volunteers continue to play a crucial role in our work at Bwlch Corog. We now hold two ‘workdays’ a month - usually on the middle Thursday and final Saturday and have continued to see our volunteer base grow and diversify. Our most popular activities have seen up to 39 participants attending. Over the summer and autumn, our volunteers have helped with a variety of tasks including bracken clearing and sapling care, heather seed collection and planting, bramble clearance in the woodland, footpath improvement, stripping bark from larch poles to be used in constructing a shelter, firewood chopping and stacking, and tree seed collection.

Partnerships

We continue to develop a partnership with other landowners in the local area and in September we visited a neighbouring farm Pemprys, with a representative of Heneb, the Wales Archeological Trust, to look at medieval and bronze age ruins on that site and our own. We hope to develop projects exploring the archeological heritage of the area in 2025.

With a grant from the national peatland action programme, and support from the RSPB, we are working with two local landowners to survey their peatland, which will allow them to consider options for future peatland restoration. We plan to develop further projects jointly with other local landowners, going forwards.

Don’t forget to look at our website www.cambrianwildwood.org where you can find out so much about the project and keep up to date with our news items. Please contact us if you want to be on our newsletter mailing list

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