Six SWOAPG Members attended a workshop at Craig-y-Nos Country Park on 17 May led by Beverley Lewis of Bannau Brycheiniog National Park Authority. The aim of this workshop was to to learn about how Outdoor Activity Providers and their clients can help to record and control some of the invasive species that occur in the places we visit in the National Park and elsewhere. The workshop included a classroom introduction followed by a walk around the Country Park to identify on-site INNS and practise pulling Himalayan Balsam (and hanging it out to die on the fence).

Congratulations to Call of the Wild’s James for applying his newly-acquired knowledge to deploy clients to pull Balsam in the Sychryd gorge the very next day (see ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures below)!

Invasive Non-Native Species are a serious problem for our natural environment so we hope to be able to engage more Outdoor Activity Providers in helping to tackle them in future – especially in those locations we frequent that are difficult for others to get to. Watch this space for further opportunities…