Environmental Engineering Reference
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holiday areas.' Oddly, having noted these qualities and pressures, the report then goes on to say that these
areas 'do not call for the degree of positive management required in National Parks, nor for the closer
scientific controlwhichmaybenecessary inNational NatureReserves', andinsodoingsealed thefateof
AONBS , which remained poorly funded and little known until the passing of the Countryside and Rights
of Way Act in 2000.
THE VOLUNTARY APPROACH
The Gower Society was not the only voluntary organisation created as a result ofconcern about the area's
future. The same year that the AONB was designated, 1956, also saw the formation of the Gower Orni-
thological Society, which was the beginning of systematic bird recording in Gower. It came into being
because Norman Moore, then the Director of the Nature Conservancy, needed an organiser to undertake
the census of buzzards in Gower as part of a national scheme. A local solicitor and naturalist, Neville
Douglas-Jones, was asked to help and he soon recruited a network of volunteers. The Society has always
been quite a small organisation, with current membership at around 100, but is very active, taking part in
many surveys and playing an important role in the conservation of the area. An important ornithological
milestone was reached in 1992 when the Society published An Atlas of Breeding Birds in West Glamor-
gan .
Five years later, in January 1961, the Glamorgan County Naturalists' Trust was founded by H. J. (Jo)
HamburyandNevilleDouglas-Joneswith'theaimofconservingareasofhighscientificinterestbutatthe
same time not interfering with legitimate industrial development', a statement that reflected not only the
social attitudes of the time, but also the current situation, Glamorgan being still a highly industrial county
in this period. Hambury, an orthopaedic surgeon at Swansea Hospital and an active member of the Gower
Ornithological Society, was Chairman for 10 years until 1971 and during that time built up and guided
the Trust in its formative years, acquiring over twenty freehold nature reserves and a membership of over
1,000 people.
Theorganisationhasbeenthroughmanynamechangesovertheyears.ItbecametheGlamorganTrust
forNatureConservationinthe1980s,thentheGlamorganWildlifeTrustandfinallyinApril2002merged
with the West Wales Trust and is now known as the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales. The new
organisation managesover100naturereservesincludingthePembrokeshire islandsofSkomerandSkok-
holm, Teifi Marshes and the Gower reserves, which represent by far the greatest concentration of proper-
ties. The combined Trust now has over 10,000 members and 32 staff.
A relative newcomer, in relation to the other organisations, is the Woodland Trust, which purchased
Common Wood, on the northeast side of Cilifor Top, from the Forestry Commission in 1989. Another
recent trend in voluntary conservation has been the setting up of individual specialist organisations for
particular species or groups of species. Birds have always been well catered for, but there are now groups
such as the Glamorgan Badger Group and the Glamorgan Bat Group available for naturalists with a spe-
cific interest.
STATUTORY NATURE CONSERVATION
The Gower Coast National Nature Reserve was the first National Nature Reserve in Gower, and only the
second in Wales (the first was Cwm Idwal in Snowdonia in 1954). It was declared by the Nature Con-
servancy in 1958 and extended over some 47 hectares. It included a short stretch of mainland cliffs to-
gether with Worms Head (Fig. 167).
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