Natur Cymru

Welcome to the first edition of Wales’ new magazine about the environment and wildlife. It replaces the much-loved Nature in Wales which began its life in 1955 and appeared regularly for more than thirty years. Ronald Lockley, whose island life and pioneering work on sea-birds was charted in more than fifty books, introduced the first edition, and its pages were filled with first-hand observations of nature. It has set the standard for us to follow, so that our pages become the place to find out about nature in Wales, essential reading for the naturalist. Wales is still an outstanding country for the field worker, and is alive with discoveries waiting to be made.

But the new environmental agenda in Wales is a broad one, and we aim to reflect this breadth. With each passing year the environment moves a little nearer to the centre of public life. The connections are being made now between the way we live and the downstream costs and dangers which we are storing up for ourselves. As Graham Oliver points out, an extensive bed of freshwater pearl mussels can do the same job as a river purification scheme for a town of 150,000 people. But the economic value of nature’s water purifiers was not part of the equation when their last major population was destroyed by a drainage scheme.

There is much more in mix of articles which examine the fortunes of nature, the impact of human activities and how the complex challenges of ‘biodiversity’ are being tackled. I hope you will find this first edition both enjoyable and informative. The recipe will evolve, so if you have strong views about what we should be covering, I would like to hear from you. Better still, send me your contributions.

James Robertson