The following is from Steve Preddy, please show your support by joining the petition:

To get straight to the point, Kenfig National Nature Reserve is threatened by the refusal of its owners to work with conservation organisations to deliver a new management plan for the site. I'd like to ask if you would sign and share a petition to safeguard the site, encourage your network of contacts to do the same, and if appropriate, ask your sponsoring organisation to lend its support by encouraging its members to sign and share too.

The petition and some background information can be found here:

https://petitions.senedd.wales/petitions/244222

I've added further notes below.

I hope you can help. I'm very happy to answer any questions you have about the issue.

Thanks and best wishes

Steve Preddy (on behalf of the Kenfig campaign co-ordinating group)

Background

You'll almost certainly know of Kenfig Nature Reserve from all the rare vagrant birds it's attracted over the years, but may not also know that it's extremely important for its botanical interest: it has huge orchid populations (including the only remaining site in western Britain for fen orchids). That the reserve has maintained this interest is in large part down to the management work undertaken by Bridgend Council over many years. Cost pressures have caused Bridgend to withdraw from this work and so the future of the reserve is in limbo. Natural Resources Wales has been in discussion with the site owners, the Kenfig Corporation, over the last couple of years, but those negotiations have reached an impasse. Local community leaders in the Kenfig area have been attempting to get the situation resolved, without success.

As a result, a group of naturalists and conservationists from across South Wales have set up a petition calling on the Welsh government to intervene. We are asking them to use compulsory purchase powers to acquire the reserve, draft a management plan and put the necessary funds in place to deliver that plan. This option is a last resort, and we are hoping that the petition will provide the public pressure that persuades the corporation to engage constructively with NRW. At least 5000 signatures are needed to trigger a debate in the Senedd (Welsh parliament) about this: we're around 80% of the way there already but need one last push to get us there.