Sustainable Management Scheme

The Project area is located in South-West Anglesey and extends from the Malltraeth Estuary to Llandrygarn. Much of the Project area falls within the Anglesey Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and includes a diversity of habitats: coastal, wetland, riverine, sand dune, woodland and farmland.

The Project is being led by Bodorgan Environmental Management Limited which is a ‘not-for-profit’ company whose purpose is to manage and improve landscape and nature in this part of Anglesey. Bodorgan Environmental Management is closely connected to the Bodorgan Estate.

Bodorgan has been the home of the Meyrick family since the 1370s.

Today the Bodorgan Estate is the oldest land holding on Anglesey. This longevity has provided the opportunity to shape, protect and enhance many of the special areas that exist today in South-West Anglesey.

Nature conservation is a passion at Bodorgan, and the Estate has been active in delivering biodiversity gain whether that be planting trees, widening hedgerows, curating conservation grazing, harbouring a red squirrel sanctuary or supporting the work of Natural Resources Wales.

At its core the Estate is and has always been a farming estate and has made land available to local farming families for generations. The Estate employs a significant number of local people and Welsh remains the working language of many of the Estate’s teams.

The Project Manager is Dave Bateson, an experienced environmental professional who lives on Anglesey and who has spent many years working for RSPB on Anglesey.

The Project is ultimately accountable to Welsh Government.

However, the Project is assisted by a Project Board whose membership comprises people from Anglesey and North Wales with expertise in: ecology; farming; Welsh history; and the working of local government.

We are fortunate enough to be working with a number of highly skilled and experienced organisations and professionals including:

• Natural Resources Wales
• North Wales Rivers Trust
• Bangor University’s School of History and the Institute for the Study of Welsh Estates
• Adrienne Stratford, Wales’ leading expert on chough
• Paul Harrison of Harrison Design Development, an award-winning North Wales-based landscape designer
• Geoff Wood, an experienced public art consultant whose family have lived for generations in the Aberffraw area.

We are delivering a portfolio of individual projects whose purpose is to benefit biodiversity and improve river health. These projects include:

• Re-wetting historic peatlands: lowland peatland in this part of Anglesey is today much reduced in extent. Peatland is of significance both for the range of wetland plants and insects it supports and its important role in storing carbon.
• Re-introduction of grazing to coastal pastures: a focus here is on improving habitat for foraging chough.
• Creating new fenced streamside corridors: the purpose here is to improve water quality and habitat for spawning fish and to reduce nutrient and sediment input.
• The creation of new pools in wet pasture.

We intend to deliver 3 new sections of high quality footpath and a new landform. We have called this limb of the Project ‘Voices in the Landscape’.

We will use innovative interpretation material to help tell the story of landscape change and the history of the people who have lived in, worked in and shaped this landscape.

See the separate FAQs on Voices in the Landscape for further detail.

The Project is funded by the European Union Rural Development Fund which is administered by Welsh Government. The Project received an award of up to £595,000 of grant funding.

The Bodorgan Estate will be contributing further sums from its own resources to support the delivery of the Project.

The Project started in April 2021 and will conclude at the end of June 2023.