Saving Brechfa’s bumblebees
Saving Brechfa’s bumblebees is a community engagement project collaborating with local schools, community groups, and individuals in the heart of Carmarthenshire.
Credit: Steph Miles
Carmarthenshire is one of the richest places for bumblebees in the UK, with several rare bumblebees including the Brown-banded carder, Moss carder, Bilberry, and Ruderal bumblebees calling the county home. Central Carmarthenshire has relatively low recording effort due to its rural nature, although many of the traditional farming landscapes, river valleys, and heather moorland can support these rare species.
The project will focus on a 6km radius of the Brechfa West windfarm, working in several communities including, but not limited to, Llanpumsaint, Llanllawddog, Llanfihangel-ar-arth, Llanfihangel Rhos-y-corn, Llanllwni, and Llanegwad parishes. We will raise awareness of bumblebees’ plight, train people to record bumblebees, and empower them to take action to help bumblebees in their local spaces.
The project has three key aims, starting with engaging local communities by raising awareness of bumblebee diversity, their conservation needs, and their plight in an increasingly nature-depleted Britain. We will deliver this through walks, talks, picnics, and other engagement events. Secondly, we will help increase recording of local bumblebee species so we can better understand where our common and rare bumblebees are and help monitor change. We will do this through bumblebee identification courses, Beewalk and running face-to-face field days. Then lastly, we will be taking action for bumblebees by collaborating with local community spaces such as schools, community halls, and other spaces to improve habitat by planting sessions, creating habitat work plans, and encouraging people to take action in their local spaces for bumblebees.
RWE habitat monitoring and improvement
The Brechfa area is a vital sanctuary for rare bumblebee species. Recognizing the local community’s deep-rooted passion for protecting these invaluable pollinators, we’ve developed additional work in the project funded separately by RWE.
Work with RWE will include habitat and pollinator surveying. Based on bespoke habitat advice reports, we’ll improve habitats within Brechfa Forest, particularly those impacted by wind farms, to better suit the needs of bumblebees and other pollinators. By working together, we can create a lasting impact on bumblebee conservation on the windfarm and inform nearby local communities of important plant and pollinator diversity and how we can work together to make a difference to our bumblebees and other pollinators.
Further information
If you are interested in the project and want to sign up to our mailing list or get involved, please email tom.bucherflynn@bumblebeeconservation.org
