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Urgent repairs had to be undertaken at Gwent Wildlife Trust’s
Magor Marsh nature reserve after vandals once again saw fit to cause damage to
the site. A section of safety barrier where children regularly dip the reen
looking for freshwater life was damaged overnight. Denis Jackson, the Trust’s
People and Wildlife Manager said, “Thousands of local people, adults and
children, visit the reserve every year and I don’t think the people responsible
for this on-going catalogue of damage realise just how serious the consequences
of their actions could be.” “The site is always checked before school parties
arrive which is how we found today’s problem but lots of local children come
here outside school time and if one of them were to suffer a serious accident as
a result of damage to boardwalks, bridges or fences, those responsible for the
damage could face the most serious of charges up to and including manslaughter.”
This is the latest episode in a catalogue of vandalism which has seen the bird
hide burnt down on two occasions and sections of the boardwalk around the site
are regularly targeted. “We manage the site for the benefit of local people and
local wildlife,” said Denis. “We run regular programmes for children and those
recovering from serious mental illness on this site and have invested thousands
of pounds to make the site suitable for them to use.” “Every time we have to
spend money of repairing damage, it’s money we can’t spend to benefit the local
community, most likely the vandals’ own community.”
The Wildlife Trust is taking a number of steps to address the problem and it is
likely that they will have to resort to installing security cameras at key
points in the near future. Denis added, “We regularly deploy cameras to monitor
wildlife so we are quite expert at obtaining high quality images and keeping the
cameras out of sight.” “It’s a shame we have to spend our members money in this
way – money which could otherwise be used for conservation but we really have no
choice.”
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