Houses, flats, shopping centres and commercial properties are being built everywhere these days. You would think that nowhere was safe from development!
Think again! Organisations such as the Wildlife Trusts are reviewing planning thousands and thousands of planning applications in order to try and protect greenbelt and even brown field sites from being unnecessarily or unsympathetically being developed on.In addition to protecting such sites, various Wildlife Trusts are also purchasing land in order to transform them into wildlife havens for the benefit of people and wildlife. For example through a recent fundraising campaign Gwent Wildlife Trust managed to raise over £525,000 in order purchase a 104 acre dairy pasture in Penallt, near Monmouth, South Wales, UK.
Whilst this piece of land is currently extremely wildlife poor it was an essential purchase for Gwent Wildlife Trust in terms of the site acting as a wildlife corridor between a wildflower meadow at the Trust’s Pentwyn Farm reserve and a woodland habitat of the Wye Valley.
When transforming the site, Gwent Wildlife Trust will be stepping back in time to the stone ages in order to create to a traditional ‘open wildwood forest’ of neotholic Wales’. It is estimated that the project will take up to 25 years however upon completion it will be rich in biodiversity and I think truly majestic.When thinking of Wales, you may already imagine a Country rich in wildlife however intensive farmland still dominates areas of Wales, leaving vulnerable patches of isolated wildlife rich grassland and woodland. Instead of fragmented nature reserves it is vital that wildlife corridors are established.
As a child I spent a couple of wonderful holidays in the Welsh countryside, to me Wales was a beautiful and magical place thus I am delighted that strong progress is being made by the Wildlife Trust in order to create a truly wildlife rich Wales.
If you would like to help Gwent Wildlife Trust with enhancing and protecting South Wales then why not:
- Click here to donate money to help them transform the dairy pasture
