Happy New Year to all Blaen Bran Community Woodland members and visitors

We had a great walk and bonfire on Boxing Day.

Sausages on sticks, marshmallows, mulled wine and hot soup – couldn’t be better.

The treasure hunt for the kids was a big success too

Why not join our facebook group, where you can be entertained by the wit and humour of dog walkers !!! Amazed by our local historians!!!

Confounded by our quizmeisters!!! or simply enjoy good online company.

Join us on https://www.facebook.com/groups/blaenbran/

Great news.

Work is well under way on our forest school project. Funded by Environment Wales, the project is being undertaken by Blaen Bran Woodland Services, and should be completed soon. An area of our woodland just above the log circle, to the right of the main track will be opened up to create an area within the woodland to allow activities such as Forest school and woodland skills to be undertaken. This would provide opportunities for people and groups of all ages. Encouraging young people to experience and explore their natural environment, developing skills using natural materials, building self-esteem and confidence.

It will entail creating trails through woodland to allow for exploration, and clearings to be established for activities/classes, with woodland furniture to be created from the woodland itself. Raised beds will be created for the planting and propagation of flora.

The hard graft has been carried out by Dave Higginson, our woodland manager, with tremendous support from volunteers, old and new.

Phytophthora Ramorum – Larch disease

Unfortunately, a disease which attacks larch trees has been identified at Blaen Bran. Phytophthora was identified in our largest larch woods, by Natural Resources Wales staff, in October and further tests have been carried out on larch trees in the remaining areas of Blaen Bran. We still await the results of the latest tests.

Background

Phytophthora ramorum (P. ramorum) is a fungus-like pathogen of plants that causes extensive damage and mortality to trees and other plants. The first UK finding was made on viburnum in February 2002 but few trees in the UK were affected until 2009, when P. ramorum was found infecting and killing large numbers of Japanese larch trees in South West England. In 2010 it was found on Japanese larches in Wales.  Since then it has spread very quickly and it seems that Torfaen is at the leading edge of the spread in South East Wales.  A number of large woodland areas are now confirmed to be infected in Torfaen

Blaen Bran position

Currently, our “top larch” woods are under a Plant Health Notice, issued by Natural Resources Wales, and we must fell or kill these trees in the coming months, as part of their attempts to restrict the movement of this disease across the country.

The Community Woodland committee are considering the options available to deal with this difficult challenge and will update our website as things unfold.

In the meantime we ask that visitors to the woodland view the bio-security notices at the gated entrances and do their best to comply with efforts to confine this dreadful disease.