Solutia (UK) Ltd

1st January 2002 was a momentous day for Welsh nature conservation, with the signing of a lease which gave Gwent Wildlife Trust control of 90 acres of prime grazing marsh on the edge of the hugely important Gwent Levels - the Solutia Reserve at Great Traston Meadows. This was the culmination of ten years of working with the landowner, Solutia (UK) Ltd, a chemical company which has been based on the edge of Newport for over 50 years.

Gwent Wildlife Trust had seen the company making a difference ever since they had got involved. Wildlife ponds were dug, surveys were undertaken, a community liaison committee was set up, a cycle track was constructed and appropriate access to parts of the company landholding was encouraged.

The site teems with special creatures, from harvest mice and otters, shrill carder bee and hairy dragonfly, to grass vetchling and southern marsh-orchid. The Trust is steadily making this even better, with the help of generous financial support from the company on the back of a 99-year lease that gives the Trust control of the land for the princely sum of just a pound a year!

Major projects include monitoring and carefully shepherding the gentle reversion of the grassland from agricultural "enrichment" to their natural flower-rich state. The Trust is researching measures to provide the conditions to encourage breeding lapwing to return.

The Trust expects to get a better and better understanding of the bird and insect interest in the old willows and younger hawthorn, blackthorn and bramble scrub that has sprung up along the reens. However, the needs of this habitat have to go hand in hand with clearing substantial areas so that light can still get into extensive lengths of the reen system, promoting a rich aquatic vegetation and diverse community of aquatic invertebrates.