Coetir Anian - Cambrian Wildwood

Cambrian Wildwood

June 2022 to October 2022

Site

Throughout the summer months we looked after the young trees planted during the winter and in previous years, by clearing bracken around them. This gives them more light for growing and prevents the bracken crushing them when it falls over in the winter.

There were months of dry hot weather this summer, which is unusual for Wales which can be very wet and even cool during July and August. This dried up the exposed peat in our molinia scraping trial plots, and probably killed off the sphagnum plugs we had planted in them – we will have to see if they come back to life in the wet weather. Fortunately, the exposed soil is regenerating with vegetation, which at first sight appears to be Nardus stricta, a type of grass. This would be an interesting result, as it is preferable to the Molinia caerulea that was there before. A lot of the countryside showed signs of drought, with grass turning brown. In contrast, our peatland areas and other pasture remained green throughout, and grew well, which is a sure sign that the peatland restoration work of ditch blocking has restored the natural hydrology to good effect.

We have continued to move the felled timber logs manually up the hill through the plantation to be stacked at the side of the track. These are transported to the shed for splitting and stacking, to be used as fire wood. This is hard work and rather unfair on our poor volunteers, and is also a pinch-point in our system, holding up the other parts of the process to thin the larch plantation and produce firewood. We are looking into alternative methodologies to achieve this.

Herbivores

The three foals did well this summer, and the herd now numbers twelve horses, making a picturesque sight in the landscape. The cattle and horses together grazed the whole extent of the site, making a positive impact by reducing bracken in the lower part, and including Molinia in their diet higher up. There are spectacular shows of upland flowers, such as bog asphodel and heath bedstraw on the moorland, and flowers such as bluebells and orchids lower down.

Education

Primary Schools: There were six different groups with us over the summer. Their activites were nature art and bushcraft skills.

Youth Camps: Four camps took place during the summer, with two schools and two other groups of teenagers: young carers and a group from a deprived area of the local town.

Well-being

‘Drws Agored’ (Open Door):

The asylum seekers have continued to visit with our partners from Wolverhampton, City of Sanctuary. The volunteer work days are very popular, and we had a great deal of entertainment trying to chase 30 sheep off the site, and then fix the hole in the fence.

A group of 15 asylum seekers from El Salvador joined us at a music festival in the local town. It’s quite story: see the report on our website:

https://www.cambrianwildwood.org/asylum-seekers-join-coetir-anian-at-festival/

Visits

We hosted two groups of Wildwood Founders during the summer, and had a couple of great days out exploring the site.

Monitoring habitats

The habitats continue to be monitored on a routine basis and documented by photos.

Other monitoring

Other monitoring work includes counting numbers of visitors to the site using automated counters. And the experiences of people attending project activities.

We carry out qualitative monitoring of our education and wellbeing programmes by collecting feedback from participants.

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