Scheme Launch

The Welsh Wildlife Partnership scheme was launched by Environment Minister Carwyn Jones at the National Assembly in Cardiff on March 14, 2006.

Other key speakers at the event were Chris Mills, the new Director of Environment Agency Wales Agency Wales, Iolo Williams, the naturalist and broadcaster, Countryside Council for Wales, and Julian Branscombe, Chief Executive, Gwent Wildlife Trust.

The scheme has been developed with funding from the Countryside Council for Wales and the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. Ultimately, the scheme will be promoted throughout the whole of Wales, but Wildlife Trusts' Wales main focus is promoting the scheme in South Wales.

Royal Welsh Agricultural Show 2007

This year’s Royal Welsh Agricultural Show may have been the wettest for years, but the torrential rain didn’t manage to dampen the spirit of the Wildlife Trusts! Staff and volunteers from all six Trusts in Wales helped make it one of the most successful events so far.

This year’s theme concentrated on the way in which the Trusts care for wetland areas – headwaters high in the mountains, rivers and streams, marshes, ponds and lakes, estuaries, and marine reserves like the islands of Skomer and Skokholm. The four-legged stars of our stand were saltmarsh sheep – kindly loaned to us by the producers of Gower Salt Marsh Lamb. The sheep helped highlight the importance of grazing saltmarshes to preserve this important and increasingly rare habitat. Saltmarshes are vital for wading birds and wildfowl; acting as high tide refuges for birds feeding on adjacent mudflats, as breeding sites for waders, gulls, and terns, and providing food, particularly in autumn and winter.

Keeping up the wetland theme, thatcher Alan Jones from Newport, Pembrokeshire, brought along the reedcutting machine which he uses to manage the reedbeds at the Welsh Wildlife Centre in Cilgerran, Ceredigion. Without regular harvesting, the reedbeds would suffer and dry out over time, eventually turning into to wet woodland.

As in previous years, the stand had its fair share of VIP visitors. They included Presiding Officer Dafydd Elis-Thomas, who was the keynote speaker at the Wildlife Partnerships event. In his speech, Lord Elis-Thomas spoke of the importance of partnerships such as ours in delivering a sustainable Wales and urged the business community to communicate to the National Assembly for Wales what was needed to help these initiatives thrive. The event was a great success with approximately 30 organisations braving the rain and the traffic to celebrate the end of our first year of Welsh Wildlife Partnerships.

Our speakers demonstrated the diversity of membership within the corporate involvement scheme, and all were leaders in driving forwards improvements to biodiversity in Wales. Margaret Matthews of Dow Corning gave an update on the work they have been carrying out with the Wildlife Trust of South & West Wales to create a wetland reserve by their site in Barri. Coupled with the opening of the new education centre and provision of a part time education post, Dow Corning have created a fantastically valuable resource for schools and the local community.

Malcolm Lawer of Tarmac explained about the potential for wildlife when the aggregates extraction process comes to an end, highlighting some of the reserves that have been created on old Tarmac quarries.

Daniel Coward of Bourne Leisure spoke of the importance of wildlife to his business and the value that working with the Wildlife Trusts added; “Working with the Wildlife Trusts isn’t just the right thing to do for environmental and social reasons,” he said, “it also makes sense from a business perspective and we would urge any businesses in Wales not currently working with the Wildlife Trusts to do so”

We would like to thank all our speakers and volunteers from the Trusts who helped things go smoothly on the night, and particularly to thank Cambrensis Communications, one of our founder Welsh Wildlife Partners for sponsoring the reception. In addition, we are also extremely grateful to the following corporate supporters for their valuable contributions: Brecon Carreg for the donation of bottled water; Dave Hopkins of design company The Info Group, in Rhiwbina, Cardiff, for providing interpretation boards for the saltmarsh sheep; and First Hydro in Gwynedd for sponsoring our smart new membership and vision pop-up display boards.