Volunteers in Carmarthenshire

Volunteers and Staff in Carmarthenshire

This autumn, WTSWW has been helping with the management of Carmarthenshire County Council’s Ynys Dawela park, near Brynamman.

The park is incredibly important for wildlife, with both marsh fritillaries in its damp meadows, and dormice living in its thick scrubby field margins and young secondary woodlands.

The work came about through WTSWW’s involvement in Carmarthenshire Biodiversity Partnership, and was delivered with financial support from Welsh Government, through Carmarthenshire County Council.

Council and Butterfly Conservation staff teamed up with staff and volunteers from across WTSWW’s patch, to mow and rake the grasslands, whose extensive use by the public and difficult access make any kind of grazing management very difficult to achieve. Invading scrub was cleared from field edges (under a dormouse licence) to help maintain the balance of habitats for both the priority species it hosts. Mowing will also benefit the wide array of flowering plants that grow in the meadows, and the use of low impact techniques ensures the damp grasslands were protected.

It’s amazing what a big team working together can achieve, and over three days the site was really opened up. We look forward to seeing the results of our hard work next summer.