It was an absolute delight for us to contribute in a number of different ways to this year’s CIEEM Wales Peatland Conference – which was held, quite literally a stone’s throw from our wonderful project site at Crymlyn in Swansea. LIFEquake senior project officer Gareth Thomas delivered a detailed overview of the Crymlyn project site ahead of the guided walking tour of the bog (led by Gareth too!) on the following day – World Wetlands Day. Gareth was joined on stage by Swansea University Msc student Megan James who delivered a fascinating presentation of her recent research into invasive himalayan balsam on our Crymlyn site.

Natural Resources Wales were well represented at the conference with the keynote speech delivered by our lead specialist Pete Jones MBE and other learning shared by colleagues from the National Peatland Action Programme and other partner projects.

Watch a short video of the CIEEM Conference here.

Between Christmas and New Year, we were excited to see the LIFEquake project represented across all BBC News networks as part of a story showcasing some excellent partnership working and site mapping of invertebrates across Wales – most significantly of the fen raft spider habitat at Crymlyn reserve.

LIFEquake project officer Mark Bond joined Head of Buglife Wales, Clare Dinham and BBC Environment Correspondent Steffan Messenger to highlight the incredible joined up approach to understanding, restoring, measuring, and maintaining this valuable habitat – home to one of only three populations of fen raft spider in the UK.

Read the BBC article here.

An important piece of ongoing work for LIFEquake is the gathering of valuable information relating to the socio-economic impacts of the project in and around the project sites. In late 2023, a contractor was appointed to carry out extensive research – with a specific focus on the communities around our main project sites in Swansea.

The initial research gathered baseline data on local people’s knowledge of the peatland sites on their doorstep, the value they place on the habitat, how often they visit, why they visit and how they think the LIFEquake project might make positive contributions to the local economy by increasing visitor numbers to the site, using local suppliers and contractors and developing local volunteer groups.

With the baseline data now secured, the contractors will gather additional information at the middle and end points of the project to then deliver a final report of conclusions, recommendations, and best practice.

A huge thank you to all of you who took the time to complete the socio-economic survey – we’re so grateful for your support!

Grazing is a very important way of maintaining the surface of peatland and controlling the levels of invasive plants and grasses that can, if left, suffocate the important bog-building mosses. This is why LIFEquake are working hard to inform farmers of the value in grazing their livestock on our project sites and are supporting this effort by installing significant lengths of fencing – more than 50 km of fencing will be installed by the end of the project!

Recently, while installing some fence posts around our site at St Davids Airfield Commons, our contractors uncovered a significant pile of buried second world war bullet cases!

Read the full story and see the video here. 

The LIFEquake project is working hard to develop an entire package of support for educators to begin self-led visits to the Crymlyn reserve. We have been working with our internal Education Team to create lesson plans, activities, and resources to encourage more learning and enjoyment to take place on this amazing habitat, making full use of the incredible resource we have in the Crymlyn visitor centre.

LIFEquake’s very own teacher training sessions will begin in May 2024 but we were happy to support education officer Aled Hopkin on a recent Welsh language training session for teachers at Crymlyn. There is so much potential in the Crymlyn site and supporting landscapes for teachers to give valuable academic experiences to their classes, but also for health and wellbeing objectives to be met through outdoor play. Check back in with us in the coming months to see how our education package develops!

Here’s a short video of the recent teacher training day.

Ahead of LIFEquake making some substantial interventions and changes to the surface of some project sites, we decided it would be useful monitoring to gather some aerial footage and photographs to give a clear “before and after” of planned works. We found a few breaks in the weather, during what was a very wet and windy winter, to fly our project drone over sites in St Davids (North West Pembrokeshire Commons), Rhos Goch, Eryri (Graianog) and Crymlyn – and we are delighted with the results!

The benefits of using drones are many…. not least because it allows us to easily access and view the hard-to-reach parts of project sites. It also helps our project officers visualise and plan works ahead of appointing contractors, and it also means they have some meaningful evidence to support improvements made over the lifetime of the project. It also makes our communications officer Mark very happy to have beautiful flythroughs to share of these often under-appreciated landscapes in the hope that more people will value them as much as we do!

Sit back, relax and enjoy some pleasure flights showcasing the best bits of our project sites!

Fly over our North West Pembrokeshire Commons project sites here.

Fly over our Rhos Goch project site here.

Fly over our Graianog project site here.

Fly over our Crymlyn project site here.