Projects

A Toolkit for Community Wildlife Recording

This project brought together existing resources on biological recording and species identification, alongside new resources created by WWBIC, into one accessible ‘Wildlife Recording Toolkit’, hosted on the WWBIC website, to help individuals and communities get started in monitoring and recording their local wildlife. This was accompanied by a series of 20 training events throughout the two counties, that gave training in both species identification and biological recording, as well as having outdoor practical elements.

To view the A Toolkit for Community Wildlife Recording report, click here.

Welsh Landscapes for Rare Bumblebees

A collaboration across all four Welsh LERCs for Bumblebee Conservation Trust.

This project collated records for 7 rare bumblebee species, from all known sources across Wales, to provide an up-to-date assessment of Welsh status. Habitat suitability analysis was performed, distribution maps were created and key stakeholders, with large land holdings within the species’ known ranges, were identified. An extensive policy review was also carried out alongside this. The results will be used to inform future survey, conservation, research and policy work across Wales.

To view the Welsh Landscapes for Rare Bumblebees report, click here.

Habitat Association Maps

These maps highlight areas that are likely to contain suitable habitat for a species, and can be used to plan conservation work, target recorder effort or as evidence to support need for species surveys, e.g. in a planning context. They are based on spatial associations between species records and land cover classes, relative to overall recording effort.

We have produced these maps for a variety of organisations and functions, including Bionet (Local Nature Partnership in Northeast Wales), Brecon Beacons National Park Authority, Bumblebee Conservation Trust and Carmarthenshire County Council.

Land Use Planning Tool

An online GIS data portal, developed in partnership with HabitatInfo. A geographic information system (GIS) is a system that creates, manages, analyzes, and maps all types of data. This tool brings together key spatial data into one tool to inform conservation, planning and decision making. It includes regularly updated layers of species records for key priority species, modelled habitat suitability layers, guide layers of overall ‘biodiversity value’, priority habitats and protected sites, flood and nutrient loss risk layers and more.

This tool is now playing an important role in the regional planning process.

Brecon Beacons Local Nature Partnership Nature Recovery Tool

An online GIS portal (mapping software), developed in partnership with HabitatInfo, SEWBReC and the Brecon Beacons Local Nature Partnership.

This tool hosts a variety of GIS layers to aid in building resilient ecological networks across the National Park, including habitat, connectivity, protected sites and more. Novel layers mapping attributes of ecosystem resilience at a fine scale were developed by SEWBReC. Layers highlighting connectivity opportunities between key habitats were developed by WWBIC.

Wildlife In Your Ward

Tailored profiles detailing the wildlife of each ward in Carmarthenshire, made in partnership with Carmarthenshire County Council, for education and engagement purposes.

Each ward profile contains a summary of the species recorded in the ward, highlighting common species, species of conservation importance, or for which the ward makes an important contribution to the total records for Carmarthenshire. They also include tailored maps highlighting public footpaths, public access land and important sites for wildlife, as well as a ward description provided by CCC. A record density map for each ward can help focus recorder effort.

To view Wildlife in your Ward profiles, please click here.

Carmarthenshire Ecosystem Resilience Maps

Maps showing the extent and diversity of seminatural habitat per sq km across Carmarthenshire, designed in partnership with Carmarthenshire County Council. Extent and Diversity of habitat are defined as key features of Ecosystem Resilience under Section 6 of the Environment (Wales) Act. These maps will form a key component of the forthcoming Carmarthenshire State of Nature Report

Pembrokeshire Avifauna

Distribution maps produced for all birds surveyed in three different Pembrokeshire atlas recording projects, in partnership with Pembrokeshire Bird Group, for the online Pembrokeshire Avifauna.

To explore Pembrokeshire Avifauna maps, please click here.