Saving hill ponies by finding a new use for them
A PONY trekking venture has been set up to safeguard one of Wales’ most iconic animals.
Just 500 registered semi-wild Welsh Mountain ponies remain on the Welsh hills and these are in danger of dying out as many have not bred for years.
Believing that the only way to save the ponies is to find a use for them, trekking veteran Graham Williams is attempting to revive their value as pack animals.
For his new Hooftrek venture, he has assembled a small herd of semiferal Section A ponies that have been trained to carry overnight camping equipment.
They will also act as equine companions for those trekking the old green lanes, bridleways and drovers roads of the Radnor Hills and Cambrian Mountains.
In doing so they will once again become working animals: in the past they were used as pit ponies and for shepherding sheep.
Mr Williams said the concept was designed to find a purpose for Welsh Mountain ponies – particularly colts, which are virtually worthless.
“These ponies are an integral part of these hills,” said Graham, who has walked thousands of miles across the Mid Wales hills over the past 35 years for his other trekking outfit, Freerein.
“These indigenous ponies have been here for hundreds of years. It is their home and it’s our duty to help them.
“Many have not bred for years and the cost of passports and microchipping – let alone registering them – is too expensive and makes no economic sense.”
Hooftrek is working with the Powys Moorland Partnership to promote public access in the Welsh uplands.
Ultimately the company aims to include other threatened native breeds such as Exmoor and Dartmoor ponies.
“We want to get people outside to experience these amazing landscapes and, in doing so, educating them on why they need managing,” said Graham.
Also doing her bit for Welsh Mountain ponies is Donna Udall from the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience (CAWR) at Coventry University.
She’s set up a fundraising initiative and is capturing photos and video for a planned a book and film.
Working with the Hill Pony Improvement Society of Wales, and the Welsh Pony & Cob Society, Donna hopes to present the book to all 60 AMs in Wales.
She said people need to understand the importance of the ponies before it’s too late.
As they graze differently from sheep, they can help boost biodiversity and prevent soil erosion. Even their dung has an important role, fertilising soils and supporting around 250 species of insect, said Donna.
“Neither do they need petrol – unlike a tractor with a grass cutter,” she said.
“They are an environmentally friendly way to help maintain access to the land and they don’t compact the soil.
“They also have a tourist value to the rural economy.”
INDUSTRIAL “supertrawlers” have hugely increased the amount of time spent fishing in the UK’s protected areas of sea this year, campaigners have warned.
An investigation by Greenpeace suggests the large, intensive fishing vessels spent 5,590 hours fishing in marine protected areas in UK waters in the first six months of 2020.
That is almost double the 2,963 hours supertrawlers spent fishing in the conservation zones, which are designated to protect wildlife and habitats, in the whole of 2019, the analysis suggests.
This year, the industrial fishing vessels, none of which are UKowned, have been recorded in 19 marine protected areas, while last year they were active in 39 such areas of the sea.
Greenpeace is calling for a ban on supertrawlers, which are more than 100 metres long and capable of catching and carrying thousands of tonnes of fish, from marine protected areas.
The move will be possible once the UK leaves the EU-wide system for regulating fisheries, the Common Fisheries Policy, the environmental group said.
And it will be a first step towards designating a network of highly protected marine areas in which all damaging activities are banned and which should cover 30% of the seas to protect marine wildlife, Greenpeace said.
Chris Thorne, an oceans campaigner at Greenpeace UK, said: “Our Government cannot continue to allow supertrawlers to fish with ever-increasing intensity in parts of our waters that are supposed to be protected.
“It must step in and put a stop to industrial supertrawler operations within our offshore marine protected areas, something which will be possible after Britain leaves the Common Fisheries Policy. Industrial fishing operations have no place in our protected areas.”
Greenpeace used automatic identification system (AIS) location and movement data from Lloyd’s List Maritime Intelligence for all trawlers over 100 metres in UK waters to make what the group said was a “conservative” assessment of how long they spent fishing the protected areas.
Polling suggests high levels of public support for a ban on supertrawlers the campaigners said.
A spokesperson for the Environment Department (Defra) said: “The UK is a global leader in the fight to protect our seas with our ‘Blue Belt’ of protected waters.
“The Common Fisheries Policy currently restricts our ability to implement tougher protection, but leaving the EU and taking back control of our waters as an independent coastal state means we can introduce stronger measures.”