£250,000 funding to tackle ecological challenges across Gwent

The Nature Networks Fund has awarded a grant of £250,000 to Blaenau Gwent Council to fund a project to help understand the value and connectivity of ecosystems across Gwent and the benefits they provide for both people and nature.

Blaenau Gwent Council will work in partnership with Natural Resources Wales (NRW) and in collaboration with Gwent Green Grid to design and develop resilient ecological networks with partners and stakeholders across Gwent. 

This is the fourth round of the Nature Networks Fund, delivered by the National Lottery Heritage Fund on behalf of the Welsh Government, which aims to strengthen the resilience of Wales’s network of protected land and marine sites to support nature’s recovery.

The project builds on the Gwent Levels Resilient Ecological Networks approach (NRW Evidence Report No. 855) and follows the NRW Practitioners’ Guide to Resilient Ecological Networks.

Richard Thomas, NRW’s Resilient Ecological Networks Coordinator for the Project, said:

“This project will enable us to collaboratively develop resilient ecological networks across our landscapes at the regional scale.

“Over the next two years we will work in partnership to codesign networks of habitat in good ecological condition linking protected sites and other biodiversity hotspots across the wider landscape, providing maximum benefit for biodiversity and well-being. 

“This will enable us to collectively prioritise long term nature recovery action that builds healthy resilient ecosystems, maximising multiple important ecosystem services for people and nature adapted to climate change.”

Helen Cunningham, Blaenau Gwent Council Cabinet Member for Place and Environment said:

“We are committed to tackling the climate and nature emergencies declared by the Council.

“This support from the Nature Networks Fund, distributed by the Heritage Fund in partnership with the Welsh Government and Natural Resources Wales, will enable us to work in partnership to make positive changes for people and nature here in Blaenau Gwent and across the region.”

Steve Morgan, Head of Operations South East Wales for NRW, said:

“This project will enable us to achieve significant acceleration towards building ecosystem resilience through a Resilient Ecological Networks approach across Gwent, helping us better understand and maximise the fundamental role and value of nature and ecosystem services that underpin our wellbeing, prosperity, culture and identity across our distinct landscapes and habitats.

“The project also highlights the commitment in Gwent to working collaboratively and in partnership to support nature’s recovery, contributing towards meeting our Corporate Plan Vision and Wellbeing Goals where biodiversity is protected, valued, restored, and wisely used so that nature and people genuinely thrive together in a way that is sustainable for future generations.

“I look forward to seeing the successful progress of this project as it develops in contribution to our collective efforts in taking urgent action to halt and reverse the decline in biodiversity at the pace and scale needed, building ecosystem resilience as a nature based solutions approach to climate change and pollution, as well as enhancing opportunities and benefits for the health, wellbeing and resilience of nature and people equitably and inclusively in Gwent.”