St Madoc Centre secures Environment Wales funding

St Madoc Centre in Llanmadoc in Gower, South Wales has been awarded a much-needed boost to help develop an exciting new initiative.  The centre which is an A Rocha Associated Project has 76 acres of land, much of which is dominated by Bracken.  The Environment Wales award of £9,200 will be used to buy tools to encourage the flora-rich grassland back and survey equipment to collect data on plants, bats, moths, butterflies and birds.

Manager, Alison Holland said “This is a real encouragement to the team.  I’m looking forward to seeing previously untouched areas of the estate managed to encourage wildlife.”  Volunteers will be recruited to help target Bracken which has taken over much of the landscape.  It is hoped that rare and unusual plant species such as Bloody Cranesbill, Hound's Tongue and Squinancywort will increase and that Chough may be encouraged to extend their use of the Gower coastline North from Rhossilli to the St Madoc Centre.

For more information about the Environment Wales initiative, their core partners and the types of project it can support please contact the team on 02920431727 or email: info@environment-wales.org

Visit the St Madoc Centre website to find out more about the project and how you can get involved.  

A Volunteer's Blog

Written by Laura Miller, who stayed at the St Madoc Centre for a week on work experience.

At the beginning of July I completed my work experience with St Madoc’s Centre. I stayed on site in the Manse and was working with Sarah Leedham the Environmental Co-ordinator. Living in Llanmadoc  was a very different experience to the life I’m used to in London. The views from St Madoc’s centre are spectacular and you only need to walk less than 100 metres to see the sea.

Every morning I was responsible for making sure the chickens and pigs were fed and had enough water. I would collect any eggs the hens had laid and place them on the stall at the top of the drive.

I was able to carry out a butterfly transect, and a bird and a reptile survey all of which were new to me. Whilst doing these I discovered many animals which I had never seen before in their natural habitat, such as Adders and Reed Buntings. After carrying out these surveys, I then put the data on to the computer so the data can be used later.

A volunteer named Mark brought his Harris Hawk in which is used to help educate the children. I was lucky enough to be able to hold it. This was another first for me!

During my stay I carried out many other activities such as path clearing, harvesting vegetables and weeding the allotment.

The week gave me many new opportunities to learn about conservation. The team is like one big family and are extremely friendly and helped me to enjoy my week thoroughly.