Wales 3rd sector training course

As part of our Esmée Fairbairn Foundation funded Community Engagement Programme, the RRC ran a River Restoration Project Delivery training course on the River Ogwen, North Wales, this Tuesday (23rd May 2017).  The course was freely available to NGOs, community groups and volunteers with the aim of providing these organisations with training they would otherwise not have the funding to attend.  

Held in the lovely venue of Neuadd Ogwen, Bethesda, the day began with a short introduction to planning a river restoration project before we headed out to have a look at the Ogwen.  Marc Naura from the RRC gave an introduction to geomorphology and how to understand your river.  We also had demonstrations on back electro-fishing from Rob Evans and his team from Natural Resources Wales (Picture 1); on Riverfly monitoring by Roger Thomas and Chris White from the Clwyd, Conwy & Gwynedd Rivers Trust (Picture 2) and on using fixed point photography for monitoring by Rosie Steadman from the RRC.  

After a tasty lunch provided by the café across the road from the venue, a group exercise aimed to get participants thinking about planning a river restoration project and the work that is involved before deciding what to do, using a real case study example from the River Machno (Picture 3). They put their thinking caps on and studied the array of evidence they were given, including historical maps, fish survey data, LiDAR data, geomorphological survey data, pictures and slope data.  

We then had a couple of really interesting talks from Dewi Roberts and Guto Roberts from the National Trust introducing the catchment perspective before we headed out to see Nant Ffrancon and the Ogwen (Picture 4).  Getting to see the views of Nant Ffrancon in the beautiful sunshine was a real treat!  The RRC team then had to rush off to get their train but attendees stayed on site with the NRW leader.