Wye Valley Wilding in conversation with Tir Natur

Wye Valley Wilding hosted our first online event and welcomed Tir Natur to tell us about their work.  Tir Natur is a Welsh charity focused on the recovery of nature in Wales through rewilding.  Tir Natur was established in 2022 by a small group of Welsh citizens deeply concerned about the state of nature in Wales who were determined to act.  It has quickly grown into a charity which aims to be a beacon of hope for nature in Wales - with people and cultural heritage at its heart.  

Tir Natur is in the process of purchasing a 1000+ acre piece of land, which will enable the start of Wales’s largest rewilding project.  They aim to restore this large site to help it flourish into its wildest and most resilient form. 

They will apply rewilding principles at a landscape-scale: after extensive surveying, mapping and monitoring, they aim to introduce small numbers of hardy breeds of cattle, ponies and pigs to recreate varied and missing habitats. With ambition to restore peatlands, temperate rainforests, wood pasture, wetlands and river meanders. This will create an abundance and diversity of wildlife.  They will also explore species reintroductions where feasible - although there are no plans to introduce carnivores!  They also aim to support local existing tourism businesses and create new local jobs.

Tir Natur's interventions will capture carbon, improve soil and water health, and improve climate resilience for the land and its surroundings.  The land they buy will be open access and enable more people to connect with nature.  Through data, citizen science, the arts, and storytelling, they aim to share their results with the public, landowners and policymakers and be part of a network of people and projects leading nature recovery in Wales.

You can learn more about them and support their work by visiting the website https://www.tirnatur.cymru/ 

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It should be an exciting New Year for Nature in Wales.