Connect Môr
Connect Môr is our exciting new biodiversity project that ran from September 2025 to February 2026. It is an educational project, funded by Pembrokeshire Nature Partnership and the Bluestone Foundation, focusing on the wide range of biodiversity around The Parrog area in Goodwick and connecting with the local community and schools through a series of events.
Connect Môr is an educational biodiversity project that ran from September 2025 until February 2026, that aimed to connect local schools and community to the range of biodiversity in the local area.
Connect Môr worked with local schools and Sea Trust Marine Biology Club members delivering educational sessions on biodiversity, in addition to a schools ‘Biodiversity Day’ for 3 local primary schools, held at Ocean Lab in Goodwick. The project also hosted two community events – a community walk and a talk on local biodiversity.
Included in the project was the installation of additional planters in the Sea Trust Gardd y Môr garden, as well as an information board showcasing local biodiversity on a beautifully illustrated map of the local area.
The project allowed us to create additional educational sessions on biodiversity for our current educational programme, to use in education outreach and in our free after-school Marine Biology Clubs here at Sea Trust. Thank you to all our incredible volunteers helping us out on this project.
This project was funded by Pembrokeshire Nature Partnership and the Bluestone Foundation.
Community Biodiversity Talk
January has been a busy month for our Connect Môr project and our community biodiversity events. Our last event hosted at Ocean Lab Café on Monday 19th January, was a biodiversity talk with presentations from Ant Rogers (Biodiversity Implementation Officer) and Anna Webberley (Sea Trust Marine Conservation and Education Officer). A big thank you to them for their presentations, but also a massive thank you to all who attended, we hope you found it fascinating and insightful, maybe even found out about a new species in your local environment.
Ant Rogers gave an insightful presentation showing the effects that preserving biodiversity can have on surrounding habitats and species. He brilliantly explained the different acts, laws and bills that have been introduced over the last ten years across the Uk, that should provide a positive impact to all habitats. Specifically, he highlighted the change across species in Pembrokeshire and locally in Goodwick Moor. Although preserving biodiversity is more openly discussed, with more and more organisations have a duty to protect their environments, there is still much progress to be made. Even the smallest decrease in a specie population can affect the surrounding habitats and species massively.
Anna Webberley gave a gorgeous presentation highlighting the marine mammals that Pembrokeshire is home to, including our residential Harbour porpoises, Atlantic Grey seals, and even the occasional Humpback whale, (2 years ago we had a singular Humpback whale in our harbour. We are always on the lookout in case he comes back!) She presented the work that Sea Trust performs, to help preserve our marine life, and impact that our Porpoise photo ID and Atlantic Grey seals surveys and research we partake in have.
Biodiversity School Day
Students and teachers from Ysgol Gynradd Wdig, Ysgol Glannau Gwaun and Holy Name Catholic Primary School joined us on Wednesday 14th January for our ‘Biodiversity Day’ as part of our Connect Môr project. Together, we explored the incredible range of species that Pembrokeshire has on its doorstep, from bumblebees to otters.
Our Scavenger Hunt took everyone on an adventure through Goodwick Moor, solving the riddles about local marine life, to find the important clue, that lead them back to Gardd Y Môr at Ocean Lab, in search of the hidden treasure.
Everyone got stuck in to find as much litter and rubbish along the beach as part of our beach clean, finding large sections of rope, food wrappers and twine, but also some gorgeous shells too. The beach is looking sparkling clean! Our third activity, the students got hands-on and stuck in with our Wild Marjoram planting activity.
Everyone planted their own compostable pot to take with them and learnt about the role of wildflowers in our environment. When March comes, hopefully with some sun and warmer weather, they will be able to plant their pots in the ground and watch them flourish.
A huge thank you to all who took part and helped protect Pembrokeshire’s rich and beautiful diversity. Your excitement and enthusiasm throughout was amazing!
Gardd y Môr Garden
Our incredible maintenance team constructed two small additional planters at the entrance to the garden as well as a planter that formed the support for the information board. Our garden expert volunteers have planted some Yellow Rattle as well in the area of ground close to Ocean Lab main entrance. All of these gorgeous additonal plants contribute to our ‘Bee Friendly’ scheme accrediation.
A significant part of the project was creating our wonderful information board that was made by Sea Trust wildlife volunteer Andy Wise who spent hours creating a beautiful watercolour artwork.
We are incredibly grateful and appreciative to all our amazing volunteers that have contributed alot of time, effort and enthusiasm into this project.
Community Walk
We hosted our first community event on Saturday 6th September; our Community ‘Biodiversity Walk’ in collaboration with David Pepper from Aberguawn Walks. We walked from Fishguard, down to the Goodwick Moor Nature Reserve and along The Parrog back to Ocean Lab for a drink at the Café. It was an amazing opportunity to chat to lots of poeple in the community about the local wildlife we are very lucky to have, and learn more about the local biodiversity.
The Artwork (Painted by Andy Wise)
Andy has been a Sea Trust volunteer, helping with the Porpoise surveys, since 2019. After retiring as a Youth Justice Adviser to the Ministry of Justice, he has spent most of his time watching wildlife of one kind or another all over the UK and abroad.
Andy was introduced to the world of nature by Mr Streeter, his class teacher at Friarn School in Bridgwater in 1967. Nature walks in the fields near the school quickly became the springboard for trips every weekend to local wildlife hotspots near Brighton on the south coast of England when he was in his teens.
His early career was as a secondary school art teacher and outdoor pursuits coordinator. A massive career change happened in 2002 when he became education adviser to Durham Youth Offending team.
Flitting forward 45 years finds Andy now living in South Wales, working between Swansea and the London office of the Ministry of Justice but home-based in a seafront flat on the Gower peninsula. Being able to work from home in such a location was ‘living the dream’ as phone meetings with folks in government in Cardiff and London didn’t prevent sneaky sea watches…the Bristol Channel having frequent porpoise and common dolphin sightings plus fantastic seabirds.
Andy had a life-changing climbing accident in 2014…climbing alone on the cliffs at Rotherslade, a handhold broke away and gravity took over.
In Andy’s own words ‘I was lying on the beach very badly hurt before a paramed rescue team got to me and stretchered me to a waiting ambulance. The best bit was having my clothes cut off me in hospital…the trauma team thought I was bonkers but I guess it was just shock’.
Since this incident Andy has been permanently disabled but continues to be very active watching wildlife. Upon getting an early retirement package in 2016, he began volunteering as ‘Guide in a Hide’ at WWT Llanelli for a year before moving to West Wales in 2018 where he began doing bottle-nosed dolphins surveys and public engagement work with Cardigan Bay Marine Wildlife Centre (the Marine arm of the Wildlife Trust for South and West Wales). Fortunately, on one of Andy’s occasional trips west from Swansea he’d met Cliff Benson, the founder of Sea Trust, and decided to volunteer with Sea Trust.
As Andy says ‘best decision I ever made. Finding such a committed and welcoming team has led to great experiences and opportunities, including doing this illustration of Goodwick and it’s wildlife’.
Andy says the artists who most influenced his work over the years include Caravaggio with his use of light v dark (chiaro-scuro) to increase drama and, especially Paul Cezanne, the Neo-impressionist.
In Andy’s own words ‘although these 2 famous artists were a major inspiration, the person I really had in mind for my Goodwick illustration is Alfred Bestall, a former commercial artist who took over the Rupert Bear illustrations in the Daily Express back in the day. His experiences as a child in Wales and Cornwall led to his adoption of the classic ‘Rupert’ landscapes and went well with his slightly simplified but appealing line drawing and watercolour depictions. I tried to make all the species appealling (even the fish!) and present them in an impressionistic, rather than a detailed, way. I’ve even hidden a couple of snails having a conversation just for fun. My tip…they’re pretty small’.
Andy would like to thank all the staff and volunteers at Sea Trust for help and encouragement, in particular Sam and Anna, Nadia and Lloyd.
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