Gwent Wildlife Trust is working in partnership on the Living Levels Landscape Scheme to reconnect people and communities to the wonderful Gwent Levels landscape and the biodiversity that can be found there, through a £2.5 million grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund. Work has included supporting landowners in restoring over 20 kilometres of field ditch network, along with discovering some wonderful orchards with rare fruit varieties. Through generous donations and fundraising, the Wildlife Trust have also been able to buy Bridewell Common, adjacent to their Magor Marsh Nature Reserve, adding 82 acres of species rich marshy grassland and field ditches (known locally as reens) to the growing network of land managed for biodiversity on the Levels.
The waterways on the Gwent Levels are known locally as ‘reens’ © Neil Aldridge
Our water vole reintroduction project back in 2013 has now seen Britain’s rarest mammal extend its range right across the eastern Gwent Levels. The project benefits from ongoing monitoring by volunteers, and remains a real success story for biodiversity and the communities that live there, who delight in seeing these charismatic mammals back swimming along the network of watercourses.
Water voles are declining in the UK but here they thrive © Neil Aldridge
A waterway in the Gwent Levels © Neil Aldridge
Bee orchid on the Gwen Levels © Neil Aldridge
A Little Egret wanders freely through the reens © Neil Aldridge
Male ruddy darter dragonfly making the most of this watery habitat © Neil Aldridge
Neil Aldridge