Brecon Beacons Special

Coming soon ..... the spring edition of Natur Cymru with a Brecon Beacons theme. Many articles written by local experts working in the front lines of conservation. Artwork for the cover kindly provided by Denise di Battistta.

Explore the finer points of Llangorse Lake or learn how to lay a 1200mm gas pipe through 36kms of national park in the 'most benign way'. The devastation of last year’s wildfires and the use of remote sensing technology to help restoration. What’s happening at Waun Fignen Felen? Farming Y Gyrn with Blue Greys. Rearing the right sort of crayfish at Cynrig. Containing the spread of phytophthora. Challenges of managing the Brecon Beacons National Park. Capel Horeb quarry boasts remnants of vascular plant tissue – the oldest evidence in the world.

Plus articles from further afield including the Wales Coast Path, monitoring limpets with the Field Studies Council at Dale Fort, new information on our 74 National Nature Reserves, BTO Cymru’s chat survey and an easy to understand introduction to the government’s Natural Environment Framework.

Retail price £4 distributed by Welsh Books Council. Available 15th March 2012. Annual subscription £16 or £15 by direct debit.

This and that

Unknown Wales talks in Cardiff on May 19th (as in Huw's recent blog): do go if you can! Kate and I went last year and enjoyed it very much. I had a table in the displays room at lunchtime and got a couple of new subscribers for Natur Cymru.

BTO Atlas 2007-11: if you have any records for this still in your notebook, it is not too late to put them in on the Atlas website - so long as you do it by Feb 20th. In some parts of Wales (including the whole of North Wales) we are continuing to collect records in the breeding season 2012, and the BTO Atlas site will stay open until the end of July for that. The main aim is to get more evidence of breeding in some under-recorded tetrads (2x2km squares). Do contact me if you would like to help.

Country Focus: this BBC Wales radio programme is a great listen on Sunday morning from just after 0700 for half an hour. Last Sunday (Jan 29) our intrepid blogger Huw was interviewing key people to tease out the basics of NEF - the Natural Environment Framework. If you didn't hear it, you can catch it on the BBC Radio Wales website.

Snow: escaped from behind the keyboard this afternoon to enjoy the walk behind Penmaenmawr quarry to the Stone Circle. See pic.

Dealing with (Chinese mitten) crabs

I joined a group of volunteers in Dolgellau for a training session on this alien crab. Chinese because it came from China, first recorded in the Thames in 1935, and probably transported in ballast water. Mitten because both claws are covered in fingerless, hairy mitts. No-one seems to know the reason for the mitts.

We see their arrival as a threat because they are multiplying and spreading fast causing problems on the Thames with erosion of riverbanks, caused by their burrowing, and blocking intakes of water to power stations. It’s said they have no predator although I’m sure otters would eat them and like all crabs they are vulnerable when they shed their shells.

A distribution map of records shows them mainly present in the east and southeastern waterways  but worryingly they are knocking on the door of Wales. There are many records from the Mersey and the Dee. A solitary male was recorded in the Conwy about 4 years ago and an individual was recorded in the English side of the Severn near Worcester. If they get a hold in Wales, the fear is they will eat the eggs of salmon and trout and encroach on species within Special Areas of Conservation (SACs).

They are highly mobile travelling up to 1500 km inland in China and quite happy to travel overland. On the Dee they can be seen walking round the weir and in Yorkshire there’s a lake, without any connecting stream, in which they are present. Maybe they will get to the source of the Dee and go cross-country to the Mawddach?

They are the only crab in the UK that lives in freshwater but they need the marine environment for breeding. In the autumn (September on the Thames) the 4 to 5 year old males migrate downstream to the brackish / saltwater and a little later are joined by females. The males die after mating and the females overwinter in deeper salt water returning to the estuary in February / March to lay between 250,000 to a million eggs over a three month period! After one or two months the larvae / juveniles migrate upstream to freshwater between March and May  and spend the next few years there until it’s time to breed. In China it all happens with a couple of years, maybe because it's warmer.

As volunteers we were being told to look out for their burrows; elliptical holes not far above the waterline, with a downwards angle (so they have a puddle beneath the water table) and signs on the outside of mud / silt that has been scraped out. Other techniques include looking out for skeletons and, in the spring, lifting (and carefully replacing) boulders in the intertidal area to look for juveniles. Next autumn we will try putting  out fyke nets to catch the adults going downstream to breed.

The hope is that if we can identify the crabs early enough we may be able to do something about them before they become a big problem as on the Thames.

At our training event we were lucky to have the company of Marvin, now resident in the UK, but originally from near Shanghai. When asked how they dealt with the problem in China he explained their problem was somewhat different; not enough crabs! For a thousand years or so they have been a highly valued delicacy but in the 1970s to 80s were fished into rarity. These days the national craving is only satisfied through crab farming whereby they are raised in pens within lakes from which they can’t escape.  

There was a young man in Marvin’s village who was the local expert at hunting wild crabs, he knew how to differentiate between burrows for crabs and those for snakes! He was also very adept at getting them out without too much personal pain; plate size crabs give quite a nip.

It strikes me that this, eating the invasive species, is a classic Natural Environment Framework type of solution.

If you’d like to know more about the subject visit the Chinese mitten crab website. If you’d like to join us volunteers  checking out the Dee, Clwyd, Conwy and Mawddach contact Rhian Hughes at the North WalesWildlife Trust.

NEF - Natural Environment Framework

In the spring edition of Natur Cymru we hope to publish something about the Natural Environment Framework (NEF) which will be out to consultation by then. As this is going to be a very significant change to the way we manage the countryside it's important that readers of Natur Cymru understand what's at stake and make their thoughts and views known. The following is an article prepared by John Griffiths, Minister for Environment and Sustainable Development. Please feel most welcome to share your comments.

John Griffiths

As Minister responsible for the environment in Wales I am very aware of the quality and rich array of landscapes and habitats we have in our country. Wales boasts three National Parks, five Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, more than a hundred European Protected sites and over a thousand sites of Special Scientific Interest. Indeed around 30% of the land and marine area of Wales is protected for its scenic beauty, wildlife or geological value.

These protected areas and the land and seas around and between them make a huge contribution to the health and well-being of the people of Wales.

The recently published UK National Ecosystem Assessment is the first analysis of the UK’s natural environment; it aims to measure the benefits an environment can provide socially and economically. The assessment confirms that the benefits we derive from the natural world are really important to our well-being and economic prosperity. Arguably these benefits are relatively more important to the Welsh economy than to other UK countries. A 2001 study estimated that the environment contributed £8.8 billion of goods and services to the economy every year, forming  9% of Welsh GDP and equating to one in six Welsh jobs in sectors including leisure and tourism, agriculture and forestry, water abstraction, conservation and waste management. In addition to this figure, important services are also provided by the environment to fishing, mining and quarrying, food processing, construction and other industries.

The benefits and services provided by our natural environment include the provision of food, water, timber and energy, the regulation of climate, floods, air and water quality; and a range of important cultural services, including health, recreational, aesthetic and spiritual benefits. All of these are supported by natural processes such as soil formation, photosynthesis, nutrient cycling, and biodiversity which are essential for the operation of the system as a whole.

There are increasing pressures on our natural resources. A third of the services we get from the UK’s ecosystems are in decline, and Wales, like other countries in Europe faces major challenges in meeting international targets to protect biodiversity.  Population growth and climate change will only increase these pressures in the future coupled with rising demand for food.

Over the past 60 years governments working with the private and voluntary sectors have tried to regulate and manage natural resources through a number of approaches aimed at addressing specific problems. While this has led to progress in many areas, the result has been a complex and piecemeal system that often struggles to address cumulative impacts or reach the best outcome in terms of costs, sustainability and resilience.

Thinking about our landscapes and natural environment holistically, in terms of the ecosystem services provided, and the breadth of social, economic and environmental issues that need to be considered, is a powerful aid to our understanding and management of natural resources. This approach is in keeping with the principles of sustainable development and helps us move away from the single issue approaches which have had limited success in the past.

For these reasons I am pleased to be taking forward our work in developing the Natural Environment Framework, ‘A Living Wales’. This is based on an ecosystem approach, which demands that we look at the environment as a whole and understand its relationship to our social and economic needs, health and well-being. Its guiding principle is to ensure that Wales has increasingly resilient and diverse ecosystems that are managed to deliver economic, social and environmental benefits. And, with the new powers the Welsh Government now has to make laws for Wales, we now have an opportunity to refresh the way we manage our landscapes and natural resources for the future.

I have been particularly struck by the potential value of mapping ecosystems and their services as a means of drawing together and communicating key social, economic and environmental opportunities for a given area. I believe this could become an important tool for developing positive collaborative action which seeks to achieve multiple benefits for our people, environment and economy. The current financial climate means we need to achieve multiple benefits from single places or projects and our new framework is being designed to achieve just that.

I want ‘A Living Wales’ to benefit all sections of society. In particular we will bring forward proposals to strengthen the approach to the urban environment so that we can make a direct contribution to improving prospects for our most deprived communities. Access to, and contact with, nature has been shown to have significant health and wellbeing benefits and I want to ensure that our urban communities have the best possible quality of environment on their door steps. The need to reconnect people with their local natural environment is compelling and is an important way of improving everyone’s quality of life and securing ‘buy in’ to future positive environmental action.

Climate change is one of the key challenges facing the world today. An ecosystems approach can enable better, joined up strategic action to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, through for example the protection of carbon rich soils, and changes in land management practices which are important for carbon regulation in Wales. Equally, an ecosystem approach will enable us to modify and develop landscapes to help protect us from future climate change impacts, such as expanding wetlands to help manage flooding, and increased green space in urban areas to moderate local temperature extremes.

A Living Wales will also identify a range of sustainable economic opportunities arising from ecosystems and their services and ensure that future investment in the environment maximises employment and training opportunities to support the development of green jobs and sustainable Welsh businesses.  

In the 60 years since Wales gained its first National Park our understanding of the environment, its processes and key drivers of change has increased considerably. Whilst it is right that we celebrate what these protected areas have achieved, in looking forward it is important that their purpose becomes focused on the management of ecosystems for resilience and the services they provide. We are currently reviewing the Policy Statement for National Parks and National Park Authorities in Wales to consider how we can build the ecosystem approach into the management of our National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty

Our approach builds on the European Landscape Convention definition of ‘landscape’ as a framework in which to manage natural and/or human interactions, as well as considering landscape quality as an ecosystem service. It must be forward looking and should seek to create future landscapes as well as sustainably managing those we have inherited.  We also need to look at the marine environment to develop ways in which terrestrial and marine issues can be integrated.

As a priority I want to start turning ecosystem theory into practice through a series of pilot projects to test our approach in different environments and contexts from urban to deep rural and coastal, including protected areas. I also want to look at some of our most pressured urban environments to ensure that we deliver a better quality of life for people who live there.

This approach will only work with the full involvement and commitment of local people, the private sector and land managers who need to see the advantages that an ecosystem approach can bring. We must ensure that there is ample opportunity for people to input into the design and to lead on the implementation of ecosystem action. It is this joint working that will help to ensure we deliver.

We will soon be launching our Green Paper to set out our direction for this radical approach to natural resource management in Wales. This paper will set out where we are now, the challenges we face, how we plan to involve people and communities, governance and next steps. We are asking for your views on a number of set questions such as do you support this ecosystem approach and what do you think our main priorities should be?

The Green paper and all supporting documents will be published on our website in early 2012 – please visit www.wales.gov.uk/livingwales for more information.