Bryn Arw Common Pilot Plant | Stump up for Trees

Bryn Arw

Common Pilot Plant

The Pilot Plant

Bryn Arw is a low hill on the eastern edge of the Black Mountains, 4km north of Abergavenny, within the Brecon Beacons National Park. In 2017, Keith Powell, a seventh generation Black Mountains farmer and a founder of Stump Up For Trees, initiated a project to plant circa 100,000 native broadleaf trees on a 64-hectare section of deep bracken, part of the common land that covers the summit and flanks of Bryn Arw.

This pioneering project will be the first, significant tree plant on common land in Wales.

Working closely with Coed Cymru and Coed Cadw, the Bryn Arw Commoners Association secured the consent of the landowners, the graziers and all the relevant consultees. Permission to erect a fence on the common for 12 years was granted by the Welsh Planning Inspectorate on 10/5/19.

The Welsh Government, via the Glastir Woodland Creation scheme, have agreed to fund this project. The funding partly covers ground preparation and the plant itself, plus 12 years of aftercare for the trees, to ensure the highest rates of survivability.
Through entering a partnership agreement with The Woodland Trust, the project received expert advice on the plant design, particularly relating to the mix of broadleaf species and how to protect the existing trees on the common.
The Woodland Trust also agreed to carry out a botanical survey, to provide biodiversity baseline data for the site. Biodiversity data will be collected periodically, going forward.
The final chunk of funding, to cover the ground preparations, which entail extensive bracken control, has been raised through the sale of carbon credits.
The trees for the plant have been ordered from Maelor. This nursery in Shropshire is part of the ‘UK and Ireland Sourced and Grown’ (UKISG) The trees will be local provenance.

Ground preparations began in mid-July. The plant will take place over the planting season, November 2020 – March 2021.

Bryn Arw and Stump Up For Trees

We propose to use this project as a pilot for Stump Up For Trees in the following ways:

we will run our educational ‘Tree Link’ programme in two local secondary schools in autumn 2020.
children from these schools will come to Bryn Arw to help plant.
we have commissioned Nick Miller Research, an organisation that specialises in education and local economies, to conduct a survey with the school children, to study how their involvement in the Bryn Arw Common scheme has effected change in their understanding of trees, wider environmental issues and climate change mitigation.

Media

Because this is the first tree plant on common land in Wales, we expect significant media attention, which we will use to promote our goal to plant one million trees in the Brecon Beacons area.

Botanical Survey

With the assistance of the Woodland Trust, a botanical survey has been carried out on Bryn Arw. Transects were laid in Spring 2020, before ground preparations for planting on the common began. In this video, Alison Wheeler, an ecologist with over 30 years of field experience, outlines how the survey works.

With this baseline data, we will continue to record the flora on Bryn Arw annually.

Bedstraw and Bilberries

We have initiated a community art project, called ‘Bedstraw and Bilberries’, which will gather local artists to witness and represent the changes that this project brings about on the common.

The art project will conclude with an exhibition in Abergavenny in spring 2021.

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