The Climate Issue Montgomeryshire Trust News Who are we? Chair’s Overview Since 1982 Montgomeryshire by Tim McVey Wildlife Trust (MWT) has been the leading voluntary After the wettest February on record it is hard not to see the organisation promoting evidence for climate change accumulating. We can feel powerless wildlife conservation in to alter such global forces but only through concerted effort can Montgomeryshire. we halt the rise in temperatures and mitigate their effects. MWTs primary focus is on nature and climate change is causing great Our VISION: stress on our wildlife. Some animals can move north to areas more An Environment rich in wildlife for suitable to their requirements but most of the natural world can’t do everyone this. Our MISSION: Across the Wildlife Trust movement, we are monitoring these To rebuild biodiversity and engage changes; observing, surveying and recording what is happening. As people with their environment by with the recent floods, we cannot categorically say that any being an active and influential change is due to climate change, but it all adds to the evidence. wildlife champion. We are trying to decrease stresses on wildlife by providing reserves Wildlife Trust Wales: as safe havens. These are limited areas, but we encourage, advise The five Trusts in Wales, supported and support other landowners across the county, for example by Wildlife Trusts Wales, have through the Open Newtown and Deri Woods projects. Nature 25,000 members and manage 230 provides vast resources for carbon sequestration in woodland and Nature Reserves covering more MWT has done the research to show the remarkable carbon than 6,000 hectares of prime absorption levels achieved by healthy peat bogs. Their restoration wildlife habitat. has been the focus of our Pumlumon Project and work undertaken The Wildlife Trusts: at Cefn Croes. There are 46 local Wildlife Trusts across the whole of the UK, the Isle This winter the team at the Dyfi Wildlife Centre have been building of Man and Alderney. With 850,000 our new visitor centre. Every aspect has been planned to ensure members and 2,300 natures that, instead of producing carbon, the centre will remove carbon covering over 80,000 hectares. The from the atmosphere. It is built with timber and recycled materials Wildlife Trusts are the largest UK and energy is produced by means of a large solar array and ground- voluntary organisation dedicated to source heat pump, so it will export power to the grid. the conservation of all UK wildlife. But there is plenty more for us as a Trust and you as individuals to Contact Details do. Read on to find out more. Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust Park Lane House, High Street, Tim McVey Welshpool, Powys SY21 7JP MWT Chair Tel: 01938 555654 Email: [email protected] Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust @MontWildlife Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust On The Cover Wellies Required, by Eley Hart. What looks at first glance to be a river is in fact a lane near Welshpool. Unable to cope with the volume of water coming off the hills the water flows onto the A458 causing dangerous driving conditions. If you no longer wish to receive this magazine mailing please contact [email protected] or call The Flooded Garden at Severn Farm Pond 01938 555654 to unsubscribe. 2 Montgomeryshire Wildlife News Spring 2020 Montgomeryshire Project News When it Comes to Peat, Wetter is Better! Over the winter, MWT have been involved in a climate change landscape scale resilience project. MWT Project Officer Dewi Morris, with the help of Nick Young (Natural Resources Wales) and Alison Heal (Ceredigion County Council’s Ecologist) has had the task of supervising the restoration of the blanket bog and moorland Cefn Croes under and around the wind turbines above Llangurig. This has once complete, were slightly MWT staff and volunteers has been funded from the landscape below the level of the current included breeding bird, Water restoration funds put aside by surface of the vegetation to Vole and vegetation surveys. The Cambrian Wind Energy as part of ensure that in the event of huge results of this monitoring will be the planning permission to build amounts of rainfall the dams compiled and repeated in order Cefn Croes wind farm. could release their load and not to prove that the restoration is fail catastrophically. moving the landscape back to its original, beautiful, sodden state. Driving a very heavy machine on about 30cm of vegetation and up to 6 metres in depth of very squishable peat is no mean feat MWT’s work at and requires considerable skill. Cefn Croes will: Fortunately, local contractors A W Jones of Dinas Mawddwy and R J • Reduce peak flow rates Edwards were up to the task as lower down the river they had considerable experience catchment area by retaining of such landscapes being from water during periods of Ditch Blocking at Cefn Croes local farming families. heavy rainfall and releasing water during periods of Prior to the wind farm being built drought the conifer plantation was felled: the main drainage ditches (now • Improve water quality within as deep as 4 metres in places) the catchment by acting as and planting ditches for the trees a natural filter and reducing were left unblocked. As a the amount of sediment consequence the exposed bog entering adjacent was degrading, reverting to open watercourses moorland with the types of plants and trees that you would expect • Ensure that the bog remains to move in when the water table a net sink of carbon by re- is lowered. Water Vole Surveying wetting the land and preventing the oxidisation of Dewi has been supervising local To date both contractors have the peat and the release of contractors to block the ditches completed at least 40 hectares of carbon back into the in order to raise the water levels peatland restoration and there are atmosphere. As the bog on the moor and encourage a funds to complete the rest of the returns to optimum health good growth of peat forming ditch blocking. The ditch blocking further carbon will be sphagnum mosses. This has is being monitored for the captured. involved contractors driving a 6 amount by which the water table tonne tracked 360 digger onto has risen using a series of dip • Encourage greater still very boggy terrain. The digger wells. Dewi and MWT’s Dan biodiversity as the peat bog drivers were then asked to block Hodgkiss have been measuring returns to its original state the main ditches every 20 metres the levels of water every month and is able to support the and the planting ditches every 10 since before the ditch blocking flora and fauna which thrive metres with a dam. The dams, started. Ecological monitoring by on healthy peat bog habitat. Spring 2020 Montgomeryshire Wildlife News 3 Montgomeryshire Project News nature. This final section of work Pumlumon Progress is more about Welsh Government policy and We have been working on the engaged the farming community analysing “supply chains” than it Pumlumon Project for over 10 and valued the “ecosystem is the beautiful mires and moors years now. I have been asked services”. All we need to do now of the uplands but if we get this what have you done and why is fix the economic policy. Yes, to work we really will have given have you gone so quiet at the it’s as dry as it sounds but over Wales a workable way to defend moment? The answer to both of the last 18 months this is what people from flooding, absorb these questions is surprisingly we have been doing, working carbon dioxide, bring prosperity encouraging! with ADAS and an economic to the uplands and at the same consultant to prove the social time make our uplands a place It has always been a technical and economic value in restoring where wildlife thrives. project pulling together new ecological thinking, the economics of supply chains and policy development in the Welsh Government. The idea, however, is simple: the richer our natural environment, the more services it can provide us – and the more it’s in our interest to invest in the natural world. The good news is that it works. We have measured environmental improvement, Pumlumon • Caffi Tŷ Maenan , the centre’s café, will serve New Wildlife Centre’s healthy meals made to traditional Welsh recipes, prepared using locally sourced ingredients grown Local Focus to Combat and reared around the Dyfi Valley. The DWC Climate Change Shop will only sell products made in Wales. The Dyfi Wildlife Centre at Cors Dyfi Nature Reserve is leading by example when it comes to eco- friendly, sustainable buildings that have a positive impact on climate change. But it’s not just about the solar panels and ground source heat pump. Repurposing of materials and local sourcing for workers and products are at the heart of the Capel Panelling centre’s design. Here are some of the ways the DWC is helping reduce the Trust’s climate footprint down on the Dyfi: • Pews and panelling from Capel Salem in Corris, that were built by Welsh carpenters in 1895, will • The DWC is a timber-frame building and the be transformed by modern-day Welsh carpenters wood comes from Esgairgeiliog forest, three into tables, booths and chairs for the new café miles away. Timber is a carbon sequester. • Interpretation at the DWC will incorporate • The roof of the DWC is tiled with Penrhyn quarry recycled and reclaimed copper, tin, silver, lead slates, reclaimed from a housing estate in and other metals – a reference to the mining Llanberis. history and heritage of the Dyfi River • The building’s insulation material is called • The main Staircase is being made by local Warmcell, and is made in Welshpool from carpenter Carwyn from Borth, in the shape of the recycled newspapers.