I must apologise for the delay  in the appearance of this Newsletter of over six months, a situation entirely due to pressure of work on my part and a situation unlikely to change in the near future. Please be patient with me.

Much has happened in the year since the publication of the last issue. The Llanelli Millennium Coastal Park project has got underway and as a major part of the overall plan, provides for the management and enhancement of land of existing nature conservation value between Loughor Bridge and Pembrey and the creation of conservation areas to provide additional habitats. The 'Swannery', an area of diverse wetlands being developed east of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust centre at Penclacwydd in conjunction with the new sewage treatment works, is probably of greatest significance. It promises to attract a range of bird species as well as providing conditions suitable for the establishment and re-establishment of plants characteristic of the 'Llanelli Levels', many of which have become scarce or have been lost in recent years. A golf course is also being planned between Penclacwydd and Machynys incorporating, as a priority, nature conservation features. To the west of Llanelli, the former ash lagoons, a legacy of the days of power generation at Carmarthen Bay and which have become havens of wildlife since its closure, are also to be preserved and managed to enhance their value. Intensive survey work carried out during the year has identified the West Pwll Ash Lagoon as a habitat unique in the county and comparable with similar abandoned industrial sites in England. Philip Jones discovered three Bee Orchids (Ophrys apifera) growing on dry fuel-ash during the season, a new site for this species and a new 10km square record.

In fact, in addition to Philip's record, two additional Bee Orchid sites were discovered in the county in 1997. The second record was of more than twenty plants at the MoD Ranges on Laugharne Burrows, adding to the several known colonies at that site and the third was the first inland county record and was made by Jonathan Price (of Carmarthenshire County Council's Countryside Ranger Service) of at least three plants on land opencasted in the past at Lower Tumble.  I am very grateful to Lorraine Corscadden for permission to use her Bee Orchid drawing featured on the cover of this issue.

Monitoring for the Atlas 2000 project co-ordinated by the Botanical Society of the British Isles in which it is proposed to publish an updated Atlas of the British Flora in the new millennium, has resulted in some interesting discoveries. One of the most significant, and also most unwelcome,  is the confirmation, suspected for some years, that some of the richest and diverse habitats on the Tywyn and Laugharne Burrows dune systems have become severely degraded since the early 1980s due to severe scrub colonisation. Furthermore the open areas that do remain are mostly very rank which has  the effect of smothering the more valuable, less competitive species. This is largely a result of the dunes becoming ‘over-stabilized’ due to the absence of disturbance, whether caused  by wind-blow, sea erosion, grazing animals or other traffic. The eastern end of the Witchett Pool is now flanked by dense alder carr where fifteen years ago there was a marginal  bed of  Cyperus Sedge (Carex pseudocyperus) of several acres extent,  at its only site in the county. This year, one visit to the site failed to find the plant altogether but a subsequent search turned up around fifty individuals   scattered through a very limited area of mixed-species tall fen.

Similarly the Fen Orchid (Liparis loeselii) continues to hang on by a thread. 78 plants in full flower were counted at the end of June at the only extant site, the greatest number since the plant’s re-discovery in Carmarthenshire in 1988 after an absence of nearly twenty years. By August all except a handful had been destroyed by slugs and those remaining had been eaten to just a pair of leaf-stumps!. Concerted effort to discover additional suitable habitat at Laugharne and Tywyn this season by the Countryside Council for Wales, has virtually failed to find anywhere which would be particularly favourable for the species. Urgent management involving the introduction of grazing animals, opening of dense swards by trafficking or even dozing and the arrest and abatement of scrub colonisation must be introduced if these vulnerable  habitats are not to be completely lost.

On a much more positive note, Carmarthenshire County Council have undertaken extensive Sea Buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides) clearance measures on the dune spit in the southern part of Pembrey Saltings Local Nature Reserve. The work has resulted in extensive areas of bare sand, thus  allowing the vegetation succession to re-start from scratch. The only slight regret is that the opportunity has not yet been taken to deepen some of the newly excavated areas to below the winter water table to facilitate dune slack formation or even the creation of a permanent water body to replace the Swan Pool which was filled-in  when Pembrey Aerodrome was built, though this may be a possibility in the near future.  There are also plans to re-introduce grazing on the dry dunes to prevent the future re-establishment of scrub. We have both Jim Davies (of Carmarthenshire County Council) and Ian Morgan (as the Countryside Council for Wales’ District Officer) to thank for their foresight in progressing this project.  Forest Enterprise has introduced grazing in part of Pembrey Forest which has checked and reduced the growth of colonising scrub and dense Creeping Willow (Salix repens), encouraging the growth of a greater diversity of species.

I must again congratulate Philip Jones and his loyal band of helpers for their efforts in making such a success of the Society’s stand at the Llanelli Flower Show. I must confess that I have never attended the event: it always clashes with the BSBI Welsh AGM which this year was held at Usk with the Sunday field meeting staged on the Gwent Levels during a torrential thunder storm - but that’s another story!

May I welcome you in advance to the varied programme of meetings to be held over the winter. Please make every effort to attend as it is very disappointing for both lecturers and Nats officers if audience numbers are few.