Newydd i Amgylchedd Cymru

Mae Amgylchedd Cymru yn unigryw yn y gwasanaeth mae’n ei ddarparu i’r prosiectau a gefnogai. Mae llawer o grwpiau yn dod atom gyda diddordeb mewn cofrestru er mwyn cael cymorth o’r fath gan Swyddog Datblygu pwrpasol. Bob mis, caiff ceisiadau eu hadolygu a’u trafod i benderfynu a ydynt yn addas i gael eu cofrestru ag Amgylchedd Cymru. Mae’r tîm yn asesu cryfderau, gallu ac arferion cynaliadwy’r prosiect, yn ogystal â’i nodau a’i amcanion cyffredinol. Yna mae’r tîm yn penderfynu a ddylid cofrestru’r prosiect ag Amgylchedd Cymru ai peidio. I’r rheini sy’n llwyddo, maent yn cael statws prosiect cofrestredig ac yn cael mynediad at ystod o grantiau i ddatblygu eu prosiect. Os nad yw grŵp yn llwyddo i gofrestru ei brosiect, mae’r tîm yn dal i roi cymorth iddynt er mwyn darganfod opsiynau eraill. Mae’r tîm hefyd yn eu cynorthwyo i ailddatblygu’r prosiect maent am ei gynnal a allai fod yn addas i’w gofrestru yn y dyfodol. Mae Amgylchedd Cymru yn cofrestru 30 o brosiectau’r flwyddyn. Mae bob un yn amrywiol yn ei nodau a’i amcanion ond mae ganddynt un peth yn gyffredin, sef eu hymroddiad i Ddatblygu Cynaliadwy ac i weithredu dros yr amgylchedd.

Mae’r ddolen ganlynol yn rhoi manylion prosiectau sydd wedi cofrestru ag Amgylchedd Cymru yn ddiweddar, ynghyd â’u lleoliad, eu gwefan a’u prif weithgareddau – gobeithio y cewch eich ysbrydoli!

http://prezi.com/5re-etdkjv-w/environment-wales-projects-prosiectau-amgylchedd-cymru/

New to EW

Environment Wales is unique in the service it provides to the projects it supports. Many groups approach us with an interest in registering to receive such support from a dedicated Development Officer. Each month applications are put forward for review and are discussed to determine their suitability as an EW registered project. The team assess the strengths, capacity and sustainable practices as well as the overall aims and objectives of the project. Then the team makes a decision about registering the project with Environment Wales. For those that are successful, they are granted registration status and permitted access to a range of grants available to develop their project. If a group is unsuccessful the team continues to provide support to enable them to discover other options. They also assist them to redevelop the project they want to undertake which may be suitable for future registration. Environment Wales registers up to 30 projects a year. Each is diverse in its aims and objectives but they all have one thing in common which is their commitment to Sustainable Development and action on the environment. The following posts give details of projects recently registered with Environment Wales, together with their location, website and principal activities – we hope you are inspired!

http://prezi.com/5re-etdkjv-w/environment-wales-projects-prosiectau-amgylchedd-cymru/#

 

Llawer o waith a wna llawer o ddwylo

Mae’r Ardd a’r Rhandir Cymunedol yn le hyfryd yn Gibbonsdown yn y Barri. Fe ddewch o hyd iddo yn swatio ynghudd ym mhen draw cae chwarae mawr, ger Hen Randiroedd Pencoetre, Heol Dyfnallt. Ei nod yw meithrin cymdeithas dyfu gynhwysol sy’n ailgysylltu pobl gyda natur a’i gilydd. Gall unrhyw un fynd draw yno i roi help llaw. Nid oes rhaid gwybod sut i arddio – ond mae’n helpu! Mae’r ardal dyfu yn hwyluso datblygiad sgiliau gwyrdd sy’n hwb wrth chwilio am waith ac er mwyn byw’n iachach.

Aeth y grŵp at Amgylchedd Cymru am y tro cyntaf yn 2009 gyda chynllun i droi tir diffaith yn rhandir garddio i’r gymuned. Gyda chymorth Swyddog Datblygu, ymgeisiodd y grŵp am ei grant prosiect  cyntaf ar gyfer cyfarpar a deunyddiau i ddatblygu seilwaith y prosiect. Y canlyniad oedd prosiect garddio bywiog gyda gwirfoddolwyr ymroddedig a ddysgodd i dyfu’r tir ac, mewn amser, eu hunain. Yna yn 2012 aeth y grŵp drwy gyfnod o newid gan gynnwys newid ei enw ac aelodau newydd i fwrw’r prosiect yn ei flaen. Yn y cyfnod hwnnw, fodd bynnag, collodd y prosiect tyfu rywfaint o fomentwm a gwirfoddolwyr ond roedd yn benderfynol o ffynnu fel cyfleuster gwerthfawr i’r gymuned leol. Parhaodd y grŵp i weithio gyda’i Swyddog Datblygu Amgylchedd Cymru a’i randdeiliaid i gyflawni hynny ac yn 2013 ymgeisiodd yn llwyddiannus am grant Rheoli i gael rheolwr rhan amser i’r ardd. Cyflogwyd y rheolwr er mwyn cynyddu nifer y gwirfoddolwyr, creu a chynnal cysylltiadau â grwpiau cymunedol lleol a datblygu’r prosiect, er mwyn iddo fod yn rhannol neu’n hunan-gynhaliol yn y pen draw.

Er mwyn cyflawni’r amcan cyntaf, lansiodd Rheolwr yr Ardd, Lisa Williams a oedd newydd ei phenodi, ‘ddiwrnod gwirfoddoli yn yr ardd’ i ledaenu ymwybyddiaeth o’r prosiect ac annog mwy o wirfoddolwyr i gymryd rhan ynddo. Pan glywodd tîm Amgylchedd Cymru am y diwrnod, bu i ni hyrwyddo’r prosiect a helpu i godi ymwybyddiaeth drwy rwydwaith ein prosiectau cofrestredig. Fel yr holl brosiectau mae’r fenter yn eu cefnogi, rydym bob amser yn awyddus i wneud mwy. Felly, ar fore Sadwrn ym mis Hydref, cymerodd Kate, Gareth a Michelle o dîm Amgylchedd Cymru (ac ambell un o’u ffrindiau) ran yn y diwrnod gwirfoddoli ym mhrosiect Gardd a Rhandir Cymunedol y Barri. Roedd digonedd o gloddio a phlannu i’w wneud ond llwyddodd y tîm i ymdopi diolch i Lisa a oedd yn cydlynu ein hymdrechion ac yn ein harwain i’r cyfeiriad cywir.

Fel tîm cawsom ein hannog i gymryd rhan ym mhob gweithgaredd roedd y diwrnod yn ei gynnig – doedd dim angen profiad arnom. Cafodd rhannau o’r tir eu palu – yn barod i blannu, ac adenillwyd hoelion, o wlâu wedi’u codi nad oedd yn cael eu defnyddio, i greu ardal dyfu ar wahân, wrth ymyl y llwybr. Ar ôl paratoi’r tir, cafodd planhigion a bylbiau eu plannu. Llwyddodd pawb i gyfrannu, gofyn cwestiynau am y planhigion a gwneud eu rhan yn ymarferol i wella’r ardal dyfu. Ar ôl ychydig o oriau roedd modd gweld mannau o’r ardd yn dechrau siapio. Eglurodd Lisa fod ganddi gynlluniau cyffrous i ddatblygu’r ardal, gan gynnwys codi twnnel polythen a fyddai’n ymestyn y tymor tyfu a’r mathau o blanhigion y gall y gwirfoddolwyr eu tyfu.

Wrth i’r diwrnod gwirfoddoli ddod i ben, gadawodd pawb y prosiect gan deimlo ein bod wedi cyflawni rhywbeth. Gwych oedd gweld aelodau o’r gymuned o bob oedran ac arbenigedd yn dod at ei gilydd i roi cychwyn ar ‘hafan werdd’ yn Gibbonsdown.

Mae’r prosiect yn cynnig gweithgareddau rhagorol – digwyddiadau, gweithdai a hyfforddiant i egin dyfwyr a thyfwyr profiadol. Os hoffech wirfoddoli, cael gwybod mwy am y prosiect neu os oes gennych sgil y gallech ei rannu, ewch i: https://www.facebook.com/BarryCommunityGardenAllotment

@NTErddig and @ChirkCastleNT Taking people back to nature.

Last week I dashed north to visit two National Trust properties and see if there were any community volunteering projects where EW could help them. Firstly I went to Chirk Castle. This is not a property I have really done any work with before or a place I know at all. It is a truly impressive beast of a building, obviously built to be defended, low, grey and lowering, hugging the top of the hill. It also has 5 acres of gardens and a large park surrounding it which is a SSSI because of its amazing veteran trees and the creatures they support. The park is a testament to 1000 years of habitation and management of this spot.

Where you enter is a more modern addition, Victorian I believe, that was once the home farm. Here they have developed a very nice community growing area and this was one of the projects I was there to discuss.

They would like to involve more of the community in the project and possibly consider working with another organisation to develop this area so that it provides vegetables for local people, the café and the shop. This would be a great opportunity for a group but, as usual, I can always think of the perfect group but they are never in the right place to take up the offer. So we have put out a few feelers and will see what happens on that one.

The other project they wanted to discuss was less clear cut. Bush craft says Shane. Tell me how it will benefit the environment says I. As so often is the case when you start to talk a project through what they say they want to do is only a means to an end. This time the end being to engage people with and get them to appreciate the natural environment and so before long we were wondering how ‘Green Olympics’ could be brought into the project and I was getting over excited. Now back in the cold light of the office I need to think through what is possible and what innovative ideas can we use to get people not to just use and abuse the environment, quad bikes would soon deliver that, but to use, appreciate, support and understand it. So if a Green Olympics meant identifying the most types of trees, maybe they don’t have to be able to name them just demonstrate they are different, or find and photograph the most fungi and this gets people to suddenly notice how bio-diverse the environment is, that can only be a good thing. And if youngsters walk and observe what is there because they hope to eat it again, as long as it is backed up with the sustainability message, it has to be a way to bring in a different audience and to move away from always trying to sell ideas to ‘people like us,’ although I am as partial to a nice field mushroom as the next forager.

And so then to the nearby property of Erddig. I have done a lot of work with Erddig over the past 9 years and Sue’s innovative community engagement, originally funded by EW, is renowned throughout the NT. Again there were two projects to talk about. The first one was around making more of  Erddig Youth Clubs environmental volunteering. The youth club has had a volunteering aspect on the estate almost since its inception. This has been an important part of engaging young people with the estate, the National Trust and the impact of vandalism on the estate. This work has almost eliminated vandalism which was a big problem before it started. Now Sue feels that she would like to establish a route for young people to volunteer on the estate, and maybe off of it too, without having to be part of the youth club. She wants to move away from ‘you come to the youth club so therefore you volunteer’ to getting them to volunteer because they want to and because they appreciate the positive impact their contribution has on the environment. I was very interested in this as, as part of my internal role, I had been thinking about a young volunteering offer within Wales and with Sue’s experience and training this is the perfect test bed to develop something that could be used as a template for other NT properties and other organisations to follow.

The other potential project was very dear to my own heart as it starts with hive bees and goes on to encompass pollinators, insects in general, hedgehogs and the whole wonderful web of life which we have unfortunately become rather disengaged from and are absentmindedly destroying despite being totally dependent upon it. Hopefully that one should come for registration later this month.

While I was there Sue took me to see the new natural play area currently being developed and due to be opened in late March. I have read up a bit about these areas so thought I knew what I was going to see but, as usual for Erddig, I was totally unprepared for the magnificence of what they were doing. No two logs in a neglected corner this but 2 or 3 acres of wooded space with all sorts of opportunities for creative play being developed.

There are picnic benches and brash and poles for den building at one end then at the other a range of logs, tunnels, walkways and other exciting wooden structures to stimulate active innovative play and suitable for a wide range of ages, even 56 year old DOs could not resist one of the walkways although jumping down was a bit of an ordeal.

 

If my grandchildren had something like this near them they would be there all the time, rain or shine.

I found its juxtaposition through a gate from a very formal garden really interesting too, nature tamed and then into a secret Wild Child experience. Also all the work has been done by staff and volunteers and all the materials so far have come off of the estate.

Visit to the National Beekeeping Centre’s new Apiary

As a beekeeper myself I was very pleased to be able to combine business with pleasure at Environet and go down to see the apiary site that The National Bee Centre have set up with funding from Environment Wales. This was a very popular activity and it was as well that Eifion, another Development Officer who is also a beekeeper, and I both had our bee suites with us as the centres stock was soon taken up with 18 of us quickly kitted out.

Some of them were not a very precise fit.

We were very lucky that the weather had brightened and it was going to be possible to see the bees. And it was obvious that for some people this was a bit of a dream coming true, something they had always wanted to do but not got around to before.

Perhaps as many as half of the participants had seen inside a hive before and a couple of them were also beekeepers. We were shown inside a small colony by two volunteers from the centre with a third assisting with the H&S before and after entering the apiary. The apiary currently consists of 4 hives, one of which has an innovative solar powered camera which gives a live feed back to the nearby bee centre.

The bees were very gentle compared to ours and, even though it was a bit chilly, they took it all with out any complaints. I was surprised to find a bunch of wasps who could not storm a small polystyrene nucleus hive through the busy front entrance, which was well carded by a strong colony of bees, so had all got together to start chewing through from the back. I have always maintained wasps are much more intelligent than bees, you can see by the way they watch you, even putting something between you and them and peering around it, but this still surprised me as it clearly demonstrates they have an understanding of ‘inside’ and knew the honey, which they would not be able to smell through polystyrene, was in there. 

All in all we had a very enjoyable half hour and it was a real effort to shoo them away from the bees and back to the conference.  I bet this particular participant wished he had worn a pair of socks that day though.