We have placed our information sign on the wall near the gallery entrance at Habitat Info offices where visitors can read about the work we have done for nature recovery at Llanunwas over the past two years as part of the collaborative Nature Networks Fund project ‘Common Connections’ administered by the Pembrokeshire Nature Partnership and delivered by the National Lottery Heritage Fund on behalf of the Welsh Government.
This project has been dynamically led by Dr Sarah Beynon of the Bug Farm at St Davids with the objective of restoring nature on areas of private land to link up the existing protected areas on the St Davids peninsula. The National Trust, the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales and the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park have been project partners. With the drastic loss of biodiversity from our countryside it is clear that our network of protected areas is not sufficient to stem this loss and it has to be augmented wherever possible. Insects are possibly the most important component of our nature being lost at the moment and a lot of the work that we have carried out at Llanunwas has been geared to replanting or expanding hedgerows and nursing back to health a wild meadow, all crucial habitats for insects and pollinators. The infographic has been beautifully designed by the Bug Farm team and features wonderful illustrations by Nikki Pontin.
Our land at Llanunwas co-owned by Chris, Rob and Andy Davies has significantly benefited from the injection of conservation resources from this project: we have managed to fence off new planted areas for existing hedgerow habitats to expand into 10m margins around our food-production fields; in addition to hundreds of new trees Amanda Squire planted a few hundred new plug plants into our wild meadow in front of the office to bring back important plants and food for pollinators; Sarah’s husband Andy uses state of the art meadow-management machinery to carefully crop and encourage the restored meadow each summer; the project team conducted extensive surveys around the Llanunwas property to document our baseline of species and habitats present at this time and also provided expert recommendations on how to manage the wild habitats going forward and we are doing this in close consultation with our agricultural tenants Rob and Ian Griffiths to find the best practical ways of conserving wildlife while producing food alongside one another; the project also funded an extensive pond liner which has added permanence to this important wildlife resource.
In total, our private land with the Bug Farm added a further 60 hectares to the existing wildlife habitat spanning 140 hectares within the North Pembrokeshire Commons Special Area of Conservation. Llanunwas also offers a link of this large inland conservation area to the St Davids Coastal Commons SAC and adjoining Pembrokeshire Marine SAC. The Bug Farm have produced detailed web pages and a superb video for the project at the following links:
Connecting the Commons – The Bug Farm