Seagrass Seed Collection

Earlier this month, members ofthe Ceredigion Living Seas Youth Forum travelled to Porth Dinllaen to team up with North Wales Wildlife Trusts’ Youth Forum to collect seagrass seeds as part of Project Seagrass’ restoration project.

The group travelled up the day before and made the most of a coastal campsite, spending the evening rockpooling and sea swimmin, the next day heading to Porth Dinllaen to meet the NWWT team. After a debrief the group donned their snorkels and took to the shallows to help collect the seeds. It was a chilly morning so once everyone dried off they took a group walk to the headland where everyone had lunch whilst watching five Atlantic grey seals in the water.

It was a great opportunity for the forum to learn about seagrass restoration, meet members from another youth forum and experience a different part of Wales.

A busy month

August has been non-stop activity! In collaboration with Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust, the team kicked off summer with a Wildlife and Climate Camp in the Willow Globe between 31^st July and 4^th August. The team had 5 days filled with enthusiasm, creativity, good conversations, inspirational speakers, wildlife ID sessions and the prospect of lifelong friendships. After 5 days of working together, they witnessed an amazing end of camp performance that the 14 participants, aged 14-17, put together for their families, friends, local councillors, and decision makers. A short video will be up on the RWT YouTube channel for everyone interested to watch very soon!

In addition, the RWT  trainees enjoyed a trip to the Cardigan Bay Marine Wildlife Centre in New Quay, hosted by the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales team. They had the opportunity to take part in a marine mammal ID training session, followed by a shore-based survey and a boat trip in the afternoon.

Seventeen-year-old trainee, Lexie who is interested in a career in marine biology said:

“We were given training on surveying the most common species being bottlenose dolphins, grey seals, and harbour porpoises. We then put our training into practice where we did a survey in the morning and managed to identify bottlenose dolphins. We also had training on how to perform surveys whilst on a boat, including effort lines, and assessing qualities, such as, windspeed, boat speed, and level of swell.”

Finally at the end of the month the young people and staff attended the annual Stand for Nature Wales Youth Summit event! This year, the cohort from RWT included five trainees and eleven youth group members. Everyone had an amazing time and now cannot wait to see what autumn has in store!

Gardening for all

On Thursday 31^st August, the Gwent Stand for Nature Wales team opened a wildlife garden at Llys Glyncoed residential home for the elderly in Ebbw Vale. The idea was to enhance an area that had been left to grow wild over the past number of years and to create an area that allows wildlife to flourish that is accessible to residents of the home.

A combination of youth group members from both the Nature Nurturers and the Wildlife Warriors, volunteers and staff have created an accessible walkway suitable for mobility scooters, wheelchair users and people on foot, with the addition of two large raised plant beds at suitable height for wheelchair users. What was an unused area behind a locked gate is now a green space to be used to observe wildflowers, pollinators, birds and other wildlife. On the opening day, residents from both the assisted living and independent living buildings joined us to plant flowers in the raised beds to finish the job.

Seeds and Camps

It was a fun-filled action-packed August for young people in the North Wales region. The Ocean Rescue Champions Seagrass Summer Camp took place on Pen Llŷn, with the Môn Gwyrdd Youth Forum also taking part in a seagrass-themed day out to collect as many seagrass seeds as possible for the Seagrass Ocean Rescue project. The staff and young people were also incredibly happy to host the Ceredigion Youth Forum who made the journey to Pen Llŷn to help with the task as well!

In amongst all the seagrass seed collection, youth ambassadors on the forum volunteered at the stand for the Eisteddfod Genedlaethol – a brilliant chance to share their knowledge and passion for wildlife conservation, felly da iawn pawb!

To top it all off, a cohort of young people from across NWWTs various youth opportunities went down to Llangrannog for a brilliantly inspiring National Youth Summit which was an all-around success.