This month, alongside our regular volunteers – thank you as always for the great work – we had the pleasure of welcoming back both the Aberystwyth Conservation Volunteers (ACV) and the Birmingham University Conservation Volunteers (BUCV).
We were first joined by the Aberystwyth group who helped us to make wool bunds, which will later be used to create ‘leaky dams’ to help with the ongoing peatland restoration efforts. This entails stuffing 3-meter-long coir nets with sheep fleeces. The students worked extremely efficiently, mostly choosing to work in pairs and work from both ends of the nets at the same time. Before we knew it, all our coir nets had been stuffed with sheep fleeces and are now ready to be installed on our peatlands. Thank you, Aberystwyth Conservation Volunteers!
The following weekend we welcomed the BUCV who were staying for the weekend in our bunkhouse, Cwm Clyd. On Saturday the volunteers helped Hsin (our assistant peatland officer) with some peatland depth surveys. This involves working in pairs to measure the depth of the peat at set points and measuring the depth of the peat. This work will then inform the future peatland restoration methods. The volunteers did a fantastic job and managed to survey 10 areas which is a huge help to our peatland team.
On Sunday we met the group again for an invasive species removal session. For this task, we were working in an old forestry block that was clear felled several years ago. This has since been left for the Celtic rainforest to naturally regenerate. There are some lovely sessile oak trees growing in this block now, however they are surrounded by Sitka spruce that have grown from the seeds left behind from the previous forestry. The volunteers used pruning saws to cut the Sitka spruce and create space around the young oak trees to allow them to grow and thrive. The volunteers cut a huge number of Sitka trees between them – we are very grateful for their help – thank you BUCV!
The BUCV volunteers also had another fantastic stay in our bunkhouse. On Friday evening they were lucky enough to have clear skies and spent time stargazing in our International Dark Sky Park. On Saturday evening, they cooked stew before heading outside to toast marshmallows around the fire and play games. They had the inside fires going and were lovely and warm despite the chilly nights. Cwm Clyd Bunkhouse is suitable for groups of up to 21 and can be booked on our website.
We can also arrange some volunteer tasks for your group. Please contact us.
Thank you also so much to our tenant farmers who allowed the students to work in their barn and on their land as well as allowing them to use your facilities. You went above and beyond to make sure their days here were memorable.
I would also like to thank the three colleagues from the Ordnance Survey who used their workplace volunteer day to join one of our regular volunteer sessions this month – it was lovely to have you here.
We can never express our gratitude to our volunteers enough, but we try our best! As a thank you, we would like to invite our volunteers to join us for lunch at the Lost Arc on Thursday 26th November at 1pm. If you’ve volunteered with us this year and would like to join us, please sign up here Elan Valley Trust Winter Volunteer Thank You Event. We hope to see you there!
Thank you,
Olivia
