Twelve years into our relationship with our glorious festival site - the rolling grassland of Piercefield Park, surrounded by woods and overlooking the Wye Valley – we’re ramping up our focus on protection and regeneration of The Green Gathering’s local environment.
In the vicinity of the festival we have a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, three Sites of Special Scientific Interest, fabulous caves and limestone pavement, two rivers, five scheduled ancient monuments, and two Special Areas of Conservation!
“We’d love everyone who comes along to the festival to take time to appreciate the incredible environment we’re lucky enough to host you in - and to help us keep it safe for future generations.” - Em Weirdigan, GG festival director
Biodiversity studies have identified wildflowers such as the traditional healing herb yarrow in Piercefield’s grassland, lily of the valley and stinking hellebore in the woods, an abundance of insects and mammals including horseshoe bats and rare beetles, species of whitebeam tree found only in the lower Wye Valley, and a very rare woodland type in the UK; yew-dominated woods.
Some of the yews found in Piercefield Woods are giants with a girth of over 5 metres, believed to be around 750 years old.
We’ve begun our regenerative work in recent years by commissioning a biodiversity study, beating back invasive bracken, hosting bat researchers, and planting a grove of native trees.
Gwent Wildlife Trust contacted us last autumn to discuss how we can do more to protect the precious woodland and, inspired by the stories they told us, we agreed to educate our audience about how special our festival site is.
One of the most important things to remember is that what looks to you like a pile of dead wood could be the habitat of creatures which exist only in this special corner of Wales – so please don’t disturb or burn their homes.
For a close up view of some delicate beings we share our festival site with, we invite you to come moth spotting of an evening at this year’s Gathering. After the daylight fades, head for a bright light below the Radical Flank dance area and join our intrepid lepidopterists to admire and learn about some of the 2500 moth species in the UK - and how they are critical environmental indicators.
Be sure to visit the Green Gathering Grove too – and check out how many of our baby trees you can identify!
For the information included in this blog, many thanks to:
Gwent Wildlife Trust
Maggie March (biodiversity study)
Lydia Crimp (moth spotting)
Daisy Finniear (bat survey)
