Traditional orchards are priority habitats for biodiversity in the UK, but nonetheless have experienced a reduction of almost 90% since the 1950s – highlighting a need to identify and protect remaining traditional orchard inventory. Alongside orchard loss has been a loss of heritage fruit varieties, in favour of modern varieties grown in monocultures on a commercial scale. Orchards and apples are intrinsically linked with Welsh rural communities and cultures, and local and heritage food have the potential to contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation. From 2016-2018 a Heritage Lottery project helped support and create 13 community orchards across Wales, and rediscovered over 70 previously unrecorded varieties of Welsh apple and pear. New PhD research from members of the project team aims to expand on this work and contribute to the preservation of traditional orchards and Welsh heritage apples through creation of up-to-date spatial datasets and an exploration of the role of these habitats and fruits in contributing to biodiversity, climate resilience, and preservation of community and cultural identity in Wales.
About the Speaker
Niamh Breslin is a Lecturer in Geospatial Science at University of South Wales. She focuses on geospatial data and technologies, and application of cartographic principles, to create maps and other geovisualisations to explore contemporary topics – primarily in wildlife conservation and environmental protection, and recently also in public health and epidemiology. She will be starting a PhD in October on ‘Mapping and Mobilising Traditional Orchards and Heritage Fruit in Wales: Community Stewardship, Biodiversity, and Cultural Resilience’. In this presentation, she will explore the background, research need and proposed research direction.