Welcome to our Spring issue

With the nights continuing to draw out and the signs of spring in full flow, we’re starting to see wildlife come out of hibernation, return to our shores, or just become more visible and vocal as species look for mates, nest sites, or food.

For those of you who have been out and about on our nature reserves over winter you will have noticed a huge amount of work taking place to improve the infrastructure we need to deliver our conservation work. For those who will be revisiting favourite haunts this spring, you’re in for a treat as the Nature Recovery Team have installed new paths, gates, information panels, fences to keep our livestock safe, and you might even notice some of our new editions; Longhorn Cattle and Exmoor Ponies, see pages 6-7 for a feature on our Conservation Grazing.

In the year ahead, we are launching our work to save 10 vulnerable species from extinction in Gwent by 2030 (read more about this on pages 10 and 11). But best of all it isn’t just these species that will benefit, as due to their careful selection, by saving these species we will also restore the habitats and ecosystems on which thousands of other species rely.

Whilst looking at restoring these species and habitats, we are also working to provide more land for wildlife and address the worst impacts of climate change by doubling the area of land we own by 2030; with much of this land likely to come into our care in 2023.

At present, we are negotiating the acquisition of four new nature reserves across Gwent which will significantly improve the plight of rare and threatened species and habitats whilst also providing large new areas of accessible greenspace for the public to enjoy; so if you would like to help us to achieve this then please see more information about our Big Green Give appeal on pages 2 and 3.

Alongside these acquisitions it’s important to remember that we can’t save wildlife without people, and that people can’t survive without wildlife. That is why we are launching our new “Team Wilder” approach to working with communities which will see us listening to local people to understand the specific challenges they face, then provide them with support or training so that they can take action to address these issues and save wildlife at the same time.

As you can tell it’s going to be an extremely exciting year for all of us who work at, volunteer with, and support Gwent Wildlife Trust, so thank you for your support and action for wildlife, and I hope to bump into you at one of our events or out on one of our nature reserves soon.

Adam Taylor, GWT CEO

Gwent Wildlife Trust Editorial Team & Contributors

Sarah Harris (Editor), Andy Karran, Rick Mundy, Joe Ryder, Debbie Stenner, Adam Taylor, Ian Thomas, Lowri Watkins, Mike Webb, Beccy Williams

Guest Contributors

Verity Picken, Dr Steph Tyler, Dr Sophie-lee Williams

LOCAL GROUP CONTACTS

For details on all our local groups please go to our website - see below.

JOIN TEAM WILDER AT GWT!

To find out more about the work of GWT, become a member/volunteer or get involved in our local groups, events, read our latest blogs and see other updates visit our website www.gwentwildlife.org