Help us match Glastir Funding to look after our nature reserves

Help us match Glastir Funding to look after our nature reserves

We need to raise £10,000 to manage our nature reserves for precious, vulnerable wildlife.

Glastir Advanced is our agri-environment scheme in Wales that helps landowners to deliver environmental goods and services. Our Glastir contract supports us towards the costs of some crucial investment in nature reserves across our patch. But it's not enough. We need your support to raise an extra £10,000 to help us look after these special places and the wildlife that calls them home. 

Can you help us match the Glastir Funding? We need to cover the costs of:

  • New bird boxes at Pengelli Forest
  • Stock fencing at the Teifi Marshes
  • New sluices to control water levels at the Teifi Marshes
  • New dormouse boxes at Rhos Cefn Bryn
  • Scrub clearance at Rhos Fullbrook
  • Management of invasive plants at Parc Slip
birdbox

£10

Pays for new bird boxes at Pengelli Forest
Dormouse in hand

£15

Pays for new dormouse boxes at Rhos Cefn Bryn
Himalayan balsam

£30

Pays for management of invasive plants

What is Glastir funding?

Glastir Advanced is the agri-environment scheme in Wales. A voluntary, sustainable land management scheme, it supports farmers to deliver environmental goods and services. Its objectives include managing soils sustainably, improving water quality, reducing flood risk, conserving biodiversity, managing landscapes and the historic environment, and improving public access. The scheme’s environmental focus means that the Wildlife Trusts are well positioned to contribute to its aims.

WTSWW’s nature reserves are incredibly precious, and a cornerstone of our work. Their management has historically been financially supported by a wide array of income streams- including, but not limited to, membership fees, local group donations, other grant schemes such as the lottery and landfill tax, and Natural Resources Wales and its legacy bodies. However, this is a changing picture. Grants to fund our reserves work are now harder to come by. In 2019 Natural Resources Wales funding was a fifth of what it was 10 years ago. The income from Glastir will be critical in allowing us to continue our ongoing and most important land management work.

The challenge is to make sure that our Glastir contract meets our aspirations for our sites; it is more restrictive than past funding in what it can pay for. Glastir will be supporting us to deliver many habitat enhancements, including reedbed cutting, scrub management, hedgelaying, pond restoration, haymeadow mowing and much more.

The size and spread of our nature reserves makes delivery challenging. Our massive contract document specifies just over 800 separate actions over five years. For our team, the reduced flexibility will be one challenge; as a government contract, we’re committed to the actions we’ve signed up for. There is no room to adjust priorities.

Nonetheless, we are excited about the opportunities and increased security that this gives us in the coming years. It also gives us a stretching fundraising target: for capital works especially, Glastir only pays a percentage of costs, not the full value of the work, which we are now committed to doing.

For this reason, we are launching our Glastir appeal!