Natur Cymru

It is a privilege to live and work in Wales, and even more so to have a job like mine: putting together a magazine about Wales’ glorious wildlife, and the issues affecting it. I need to remind myself, and prospective contributors, though, that your interests come first – the magazine is for your pleasure and benefit. But how do I know what you want?

To look for the answers, two hundred questionnaires were sent out with the last issue, and nearly 100 have come back. Marketing people who know about these things tell me that a 30% return is considered good, so nearly half returned is spectacularly good. Even better is the quality of the responses, which have given Mandy and me a wealth of information about what you like best and least, and how we can improve the magazine. It is good to know that Natur Cymru seems to have found the right balance, and to have received so many messages of support. Thanks to all who replied.

The subject that topped the popularity list was the management of habitats. Management can take many forms, including cutting down trees. In this issue I report on a dream that, with cooperation and determination, could become reality; the re-shaping and shrinking of a great plantation that stretches across one of the finest sand dune systems in the world. Our Spring edition will report on a series of exciting habitat restoration projects across Wales - stories which give hope that conservation has really turned the corner.

Features on species were your second choice, with several requests for more articles on birds. Here you can read about house sparrow tenements, black grouse on the up, re-introducing the red kite, the elusive pine marten and observations of white stoats in winter. Plants are featured in articles on royal fern and common cord-grass.

For all the modest progress at the Earth Summit in Johannesburg, the issues raised by six billion people living on one small green planet will not go away. As the demand for energy rises, so does the prospect of cataclysmic climate change due to pollution. One clean option, wind energy, may be heading for a coast near you. Malcolm Smith reports that even this off-shore renewable energy source is not without its problems.

James Robertson