WILDLIFE in Wales is at a crisis point, a groundbreaking report published today reveals – but conservation work in Gwent is going some way to counter it.

The Gwent Levels Water Vole project was years in the planning. In 2012 the Gwent Wildlife Trust released 100 water voles onto a reserve at Magor Marsh.

Most of them were released in early summer, with a gradual release of further animals throughout the rest of the summer and early autumn.

Now the group behind the project is considering creating a new reserve for the voles at Newport Wetlands.

However, according to the new report, compiled by a coalition of leading environmental and research organisations, not enough is being done to protect and conserve nature in Gwent and Wales in general.

The State of Nature report found that “despite notable conservation successes in recent years, the overall and inexorable decline of wildlife continues unabated.”

Scientists from 25 wildlife organisations worked side by side to compile a stock-take of native species – the first of its kind in Wales and the UK.

The report found that, across the UK, 60 per cent of the species studied have declined over recent decades.

Across the UK quantitative assessments were done to find out the population and distribution trends of 3,148 species. Of these, 60 per cent of species have declined over the last 50 years, 31 per cent have declined strongly, and one in ten of all the species assessed are under threat of extinction and are on the brink of disappearing altogether.

John Clark, Futurescapes manager at the RSPB, said: “As part of our landscape conservation project we are working with the Gwent Wildlife Trust, Natural Resources Wales, Wentlooge Drainage Board, local landowners, everyone – this is big-scale conservation.

“The Gwent Levels has high biodiversity, particularly for aquatic wildlife. It’s a really unique landscape.

“We are carrying out two main projects in Gwent at the moment. The reintroduction of water voles at Magor marsh is a huge project, but more always needs to be done.

“While 110 have been released to date, it is vitally important we keep up our mink-tapping exercise – minks are a non-native predator, and so we have set up a three kilometre exclusion zone around the release site, which we could not do without the help of volunteers.

“The plan is to have a second release site at Newport Wetlands, although that is still very much in the early stages.

“We have put in an application to the Welsh Government for funding to start the process and improve the quality of the habitat.”

Serious decline of familiar species

MORE than one in seven plants in Wales are considered threatened.

Wildflowers, especially arable flowers such as the small-flowered catchfly and corn buttercup, continue to decline and have a smaller range now than at any other time in recent decades.

Sixty-three per cent of Welsh butterflies have declined. We’ve lost more than three-quarters of Welsh pearl-bordered fritillaries in recent decades.

Corn bunting and the turtle dove have disappeared completely.

Numbers of breeding upland wading birds, such as curlew, lapwing and golden plover, have declined by more than three-quarters in recent decades.

A third of all widespread Welsh moths have severely declined.