Pembroke National Park to buy area of land for biodiversity and carbon sequestration

WELSH Government funding will be used to buy an area of meadow for the National Park’s biodiversity and carbon sequestration work.

Delegated authority has been agreed to allow the chief executive to buy an unnamed area somewhere in the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park for a ‘community meadow’.

Members of the authority heard at a meeting on Wednesday (March 30) that the land was of particular interest because “scarce carraway plants” had been identified there, as well as its suitability for carbon sequestration – the process of capturing and storing atmospheric carbon dioxide.

There is an approved budget of £69,300 plus £7,700 management/delivery costs but an independent review of the land and its potential purpose price needed to be done before the final decision on the purchase is made.

The funding is available via the Sustainable Landscapes, Sustainable Places scheme.

“The aim of the proposal is to support carbon sequestration and to increase biodiversity through increasing the area of land under perpetual favourable management for National Park purposes through land purchase by the National Park Authority,” a report by director of planning and park direction Nicola Gandy states.

The committee heard that the land, of around 2.8hectares, was not bound by park owned sites and was part of a larger area of land that was being bought for agricultural purposes but the National Park had the opportunity to buy that section due to its particular interest in it with favourable discussions held with the new landowner.