Celtic Rainforests Newsletter No:9

Goodbye to another Summer in our Celtic Rainforest Project...

Welcome to the latest edition of the Celtic Rainforests Project Newsletter!

At the end of our fifth Summer, we received good news from Europe, have co-worked with the WaREN Project, and our Project Officers have been busy working away allowing us to progress towards achieving our Project aims.

Read to know more...

Project Progress

With the project recently passing its half-way point, after securing a 2-year extension earlier this year (taking us to July 2027), we took the opportunity to measure where we’re at against some of our key targets. Despite the challenges faced to date, the project continues to make significant progress, some highlights being:-

- Having 9,057.68ha of land either within, or adjacent to, temperate rainforests under contract for Rhododendron ponticum (Rp) eradication;-
- Facilitating woodland restoration on 168.19ha of ancient woodland sites, with a further site earmarked for work this coming winter;-
- Introducing conservation grazing to 277.2ha of temperate rainforest woodland reserves;-
- Networking with 12 other projects in the UK and Europe, in doing so sharing with those projects our experiences to date, and learning about how others have gone about tackling some of the pressures and challenges we face;-
- Engaging with 6,829 persons through the project, including local schools, community groups, volunteers, and professionals from the land management sector.

Such progress is a testament to the hard work of the project staff, who will be working tirelessly again this winter to continue building on the successes achieved to date.

Restoring Ancient Woodland on Sensitive Sites

At the start of Spring, we completed works at Coed Llwybr Caerynwch adjacent to the Torrent Walk in Dolgellau.

This site sits next door to the SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest) of Coedydd Dyffryn Wnion, and there were therefore certain licenses and consents required before any works commenced.

Adam Thorogood from the Woodland Trust in Wales led on the contract, and we applied the Halo Thinning method on site to reduce the amount of non-native Western Hemlock and Western Red Cedar growing around native broadleaf trees found within the woodland.

The aim of these works is the start of a long-term plan to reduce the number of non-native conifers on site. This allows the native broadleaves dotted around the conifer blocks to propagate, and the rich lower plant life found in the adjacent site to gradually return. Hopefully if these works continue in this long-term vision, this site, may in the future, be prime Celtic Rainforest woodland!

To highlight these works and demonstrate best practice; we have a Demonstration Day organised there on October the 18th. This day is open to everyone so if you are interested in the PAWS work, own a woodland, or are interested in the local ecology and lower plant life - visit our website for further information.

Tree Seed Collection Events

Seed collection season is well and truly upon us, and the project has organised a number of seed gathering events.

On Saturday the 7th of October we visited Cwm Elan, and collected a lot of Birch seeds, many Acorns, and a few Rowan, Bullace, and Crab Apple fruits.

There was then a little walk through lovely pockets of Celtic Rainforest, before arriving at a previous conifer clear-felled site, where we distributed the seeds, nuts, and fruit, hopefully allowing some of them to germinate and giving the site a helping hand on its journey returning to a native oak woodland.

Further events are planned at Bwlch Corrog, Bethesda and Maentwrog. Visit our website for further info: https://celticrainforests.wales/events

INNS Mapper App and Website

A new Website and App was developed and recently launched, as a one-stop shop to report sightings of Invasive Non-Native Species, as well as any management plans and treatments in England, Wales, and Scotland. Developed by the Yorkshire Invasive Species Forum, with input from the North Wales Wildlife Trust’s WaREN Project, INNS Mapper is free to use, and aims to provide an effective resource to support reporting of INNS, management programmes and coordination efforts.

The INNS Mapper app and website are available in both English and Welsh, and data reported through the INNS Mapper is open access and publicly available for anyone to use. We encourage everyone to get involved with using INNS Mapper to report sightings of INNS, and if you are on Social Media tag us with #RhodyHunters!

For those also going out to survey and manage INNS, such as Local action groups (LAGs) and volunteer groups, INNS Mapper is the tool to report and share survey results and management information, which will help coordinate effective INNS management across the country.

Moving forwards we hope to offer training days to volunteering groups in conjunction with North Wales Wildlife Trust and Cymdeithas Eryri Snowdonia Society – keep a look out on our Social Media channels for these future events

Coventry University Citizen Science Trial

For World Rainforest Day, on June the 22nd, we and the WaREN Project from North Wales Wildlife Trust in conjunction with Coventry University held a workshop to look at how Citizen Scientists can help record the impact of Invasive Alien Species on our #CelticRainforests.

With an initial morning session explaining the Research programme and processes to be used, we then had some time in a local forest, recording our findings on two separate test plots. Those who attended immediately noticed the distinct lack of diversity in the plant life found beneath INNS such as Rhododendron and Cherry Laurel in comparison to a baseline square area – which had an abundance of lower-plant life within it.

Running until the end of October 2023, we look forward to finding out what the research project discovered.

National Trust Borrowdale Networking Visit

At the start of September, we welcomed a team from National Trust Borrowdale to North Wales. We organised two full days for them, covering all aspects of the Project, which was very much a whistle stop tour of our Celtic Rainforests Project!

On the first day we visited Coed Llwybr Caerynwch near the Torrent Walk in Dolgellau. We looked at PAWS (Plantations on Ancient Woodland Sites) work on Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). The site falls within the Coedydd Dyffryn Wnion SSSI, as well as being a potential suitable habitat for Hazel Dormice of which there are populations locally. We discussed the processes required when working with ecologically important sites, Licencing constraints, public perception about works, and working to a long term-site plan spanning many years.

In the afternoon we visited the RSPB Coed Garth Goll site in Bontddu, and here we looked at the Conservation Grazing aspect within the Project. We discussed grazing species suitability, issues that arose, best practice and browsing preferences – we even caught up with the cows themselves!

On the second day we visited the Hafodydd Brithion site in Nant Gwynant, and here we considered the Invasive species element of the project. We explained how the project builds on 30 years + of historic ENPA work in this Valley, which today means that visitors to the area can see notable examples of Celtic Rainforest instead of wall-to-wall Rhododendron! It was also an opportunity to discuss successes such as partnership working, community engagement, volunteering, and engagement events.

It was a packed two days, and we hope that the NT Borrowdale team found the visit useful – we would like to thank them for bringing the nice weather with them!