Wales Biodiversity Week
19-27th June 2004
The Welsh Explore their Wild Side.
Wales Went Wild for 'Wales Biodiversity Week', over 130 events took place all over Wales over ten days with approx. 8.5 thousand members of the welsh public taking part in public events, plus children in 47 schools events.
Activities and events took place in Country Parks, Nature Reserves and local shopping centres. 47 primary and secondary schools throughout Wales had biodiversity themed workshops and fieldtrips.
The Whale Roadshow visited schools and venues across Wales with Life size inflatable marine mammals from the adult minke whale at up to 8.2 metres in length to the harbour porpoise at 1.6 metres. Children learnt about how turtles can mistake plastic bags for Jellyfish, their favourite food and often die from eating plastic litter at sea. There is hope to bring the Whale Roadshow to more Welsh schools in the future as it is a fantastically interactive and visual way of bringing the largely inaccessible marine environment into the classroom! Welsh waters are particularly important for protected marine species such as the harbour porpoise.
The Blaenau Gwent 'GO WILD' event attracted over 2000 visitors to Parc Bryn Bach, at Tredegar on Sunday the 20 th of June. This event was enormous with the chance for the public to get hands on experience with amphibians and reptiles, several species of rescued owl, bird and bat box building, withy fence weaving, a myriad of art and craft activities and to meet the 'Blue Peter' TV otters Bertie and Belinda!
Carwyn Jones (Assembly Minister For Environment Planning And Countryside) pointed out " The need to connect and engage better with the general public - to get them to a take a greater social responsibility towards their natural heritage. " When he addressed the UK Biodiversity conference on Monday 21 st June in Cardiff .
"Welsh people are naturally proud of their cultural and natural heritage and we have a lot to be proud of here in Wales "
Wales Biodiversity Week is a celebration of Welsh Wildlife, a chance for us to realise how lucky we all are to live here.
For its size, Wales includes an exceptional diversity of habitats, with marine, coastal, lowland and upland environments all well represented. In comparison with most other parts of the UK, Wales has an oceanic climate with high rainfall and mild winters, so that certain habitats such as upland oak woods and lowland purple moor-grass pastures are better represented here than elsewhere.
The simple message at all 130+ Wales Biodiversity Week events was that if we all learn to appreciate and respect our natural heritage in Wales we can preserve a wealth of Wealth wildlife for future generations. When asked what they thought the major threat to biodiversity in Wales was most people answered, litter, pollution, building on green spaces and some just said people!
The take home message is that we can all make a small effort to reduce, reuse and recycle, to save energy by switching off lights, sharing car journeys and practiced wildlife friendly gardening at home. A small effort by everyone can make a big difference on a larger scale.
The Partnership would like to thank the Welsh local Biodiversity community for all their time, energy, endless enthusiasm and the incredible ingenuity people have put into organising such an immense range of Wales Biodiversity Week events ... well done!!!