Habitat Restoration and improving the peatlands

The Carnedd Wen habitat restoration project is the largest of its type ever to be proposed in Wales.

The 50-year Habitat Restoration Plan being proposed as part of the Carnedd Wen scheme will see the creation of habitat areas for hen harrier and black grouse as well around 400 hectares of peatland restoration.

It would involve the clearing of the majority of the trees at Llanbrynmair Forest to restore a habitat once considered by environmental experts to be one of the finest examples of blanket mire and dwarf shrub heath in Wales.

As Llanbrynmair Forest matures, and the tree canopy closes, the number of black grouse that populate the area is dwindling. Through the creation of a suitable habitat, the restoration project will protect the black grouse, which are considered by the RSPB to be a conservation priority species.

The restored habitat will also provide a key habitat for the hen harrier, one the UK's most intensively persecuted birds, which thrives in open areas with low vegetation and breeds on the upland heather moorlands in Wales.

Specifically, the scheme will focus on:

• restoring Corsydd Llanbrynmair/Llanbrynmair Moors SSSI (Sites of Special Scientific Interest), notably Cors Gordderwen and Cors Mynydd Tal y Glannau, through tree clearance and ditch/furrow blocking, in agreement with CCW (Countryside Council for Wales)
• restoring blanket bog and flush habitats currently occupied by coniferous plantation through ditch blocking following forest clearance
• restoring raised bog at Esgair y Ffordd, through the removal of trees and ditch blocking
• maintaining and enhancing suitable conditions for black grouse at the site, to increase the chances of re-colonisation, through targeted habitat management and predator control

Protecting Peat

When the afforestation of Llanbrynmair Moors (the proposed site for the Carnedd Wen Wind Farm and Habitat Restoration Project), was first proposed in the late 1970s, there was a significant local and national protest against the plans.

Those opposed to the afforestation voiced a desire to protect the area as an important grouse-breeding habitat and to protect the peatcover which, at the time, was eroding far more slowly than elsewhere in Wales.

The revised proposals for the Carnedd Wen Wind Farm and Habitat Restoration Project indicate that only a small proportion of the felled area would be used for wind farm construction.

The remaining area will be restored to active blanket bog using a ditch blocking programme and the reinstatement of habitats elsewhere (primarily blanket bog, wet heath and dry heath).

Professor Jack Rieley from the UK Peat Society, a renowned ecologist who fought peatland drainage and burning in Indonesia, has welcomed the peatland restoration elements of the proposals, describing them as “impressive, well planned, tested and with a high chance of success.”

He said: “Misguidedly, and encouraged by taxation incentives, large areas of upland blanket bog have been planted with conifers since the 1970s and these have become considerable sources of CO₂.
The cost of upland blanket bog restoration has been estimated at £1500 per hectare, so the Carnedd Wen proposal could cost in the region of £600,000 an amount that will only be available as a result of electricity generation from a renewable energy source.”

More than 30 years on, if the scheme is permitted, this project will see a significant amount of this controversial forestation felled and the prized natural moorland gradually restored.