RHONDDA CYNON TAF ACTION FOR NATURE PLAN
The final broad woodland type is conifer plantation. In RCT, the conifer plantations are obvious, with monocultures of sitka spruce on the peaty uplands, and wider range of species on the valley sides (including European larch, western hemlock, Corsican pine, etc). There is sometimes a relic or ghost of the original native woodland within these plantations portrayed as ancient trees or abandoned coppice stools or species-rich woodland ground floras. Rides and clearings often support the unmanaged and unloved remains of original heathland, marshy grassland or peat bog flora. Where limestone has been imported for forestry roads thyme, kidney vetch and pyramidal orchids can find a place.
Partly as a result of their sheer size and partly due to influence of the remnant original habitats, these upland conifer plantations are of biodiversity value. In the spring the plantations do support strong songbird populations, including crossbill, coal tit and goldcrest. When felled, the sites are ideal nightjar and tree pipit breeding habitat and nationally important populations occur in RCT. Goshawks are the specialist bird of prey of RCT plantations, and in the winter the occasional great grey shrike turns up. We now realise that water vole populations must have survived on unplanted forestry areas, and now know the vast Welsh Government Woodland Estate is undoubtedly an area of huge significance for the species.
Associated Species
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Conifers including European larch, Western hemlock and Corsican pine
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Fly agaric
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Thyme
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Kidney Vetch
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Pyramidal Orchid
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Crossbill
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Siskin
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Heron
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Raven
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Tawny Owl
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Tree Pipit
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Coal Tit
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Goldcrest
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Nightjar
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Goshawk
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Water Vole
Biodiversity in the Welsh Government Woodland Estate Project
The Biodiversity in the WGWE project grew out of a webinar given by Dr Charles Hipkin, which highlighted that the plantation landscape has largely been neglected by species recorders. Forest managers are currently managing forests with sensitivity for the biodiversity they support based on the best evidence available to them. The lack of specialist recorders contributing to that evidence base is therefore a limiting factor of this evidence base.
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The aim of this project was to draw links between NRW and the array of local experts in NPT and Rhondda Cynon Taf and, although the relationship between the land management sections of NRW and the project are still being forged, the contacts made during the course of the project are a strong foundation to build on for collaborative working towards Welsh best practice and sustainable management of the WGWE. The project had a wide reach with a webinar on the Distribution and Dynamic of Biodiversity in the WGWE being joined by over 200 people from a range of sectors and countries and was incredibly well received.
This project identified multiple key areas of habitat including willow carr which can support hyperoceanic bryophytic communities, remnant broadleaved woodland and deep peat within the WGWE as well as areas which support species of local and national importance including Huperzia selago and Lycopodium clavatum (S7).
'Although this was a brief, pilot-scale project, it has delivered on lots of important outcomes. Not least among these has been the assessment of what we know about biodiversity in the WGWE and, equally, where the gaps in our knowledge are. Given the extent of the coniferised WGWE in counties like Neath Port Talbot and Rhondda Cynon Taff, it is clearly of great importance to make these assessments and fill in the gaps. Furthermore, the project has brought to the attention of lots of people, the role of the WGWE as a refuge for species that
are declining in the South Wales bio-landscape and/or at the edge of their biogeographical range. More detail is required going forward’.
Dr Charles Hipkin, Chair of the NPT Local Nature Partnership
