Wales is a green place.  Beautiful countryside, a stunning coastline and amazing mountains.  But something isn’t right.  Biodiversity is plummeting here in Wales as well as across the UK and the planet as a whole.

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What brings it home to me is remembering cleaning my Dad’s windscreen after a drive to our home in Towyn back in the 1970’s.  It was a mass of (dead) bugs, a huge variety of insects.  Now, driving around Ceredigion here in mid Wales my windscreen remains insect free.  And this is just the tip of the iceberg … those insects pollinated plant life and fed a whole raft of critters.

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Does it really matter?  Well, yes it does.  We humans rely on a healthy ecosystem to survive.  We need good quality soil, our crops to be pollinated and our land to deal with whatever the climate crisis we are living through throws its way.  But, one way or another, we are failing to protect what we need.  The planet is simply exhausted.

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I would like that to be different at Cefn Garthenor.  On this small patch of beautiful mid Wales we want to turn things around, to get nature back.  To actually capture a bit more carbon.  It will be a very small step, but it will make a difference.  To biodiversity and to our neighbours, who will also benefit from what we achieve.

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How?  Well, nature will do a lot itself.  But while the area (210 acres, 85 hectares or about 105 football pitches) makes it a reasonably large farm for the area, it is small from a landscape point of view and nature is missing to such an extent it will need a hand.  Over time that will mean some help from cattle, possibly pigs and ponies.  They will need managing.  There will also be some mowing, some digging and maybe some seeding.  Nothing is fixed, and we will take our cues from the land and nature itself.

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The process has only just begun.  It started on 14 May 2021.  This website will aim to keep anyone interested informed of the progress Cefn Garthenor makes on this journey.

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Alistair Hughes