Regional volumes have long been an important and distinctive element of the New Naturalist library. Most of these have focused on the National Parks, from Snowdonia by F. J. North, Bruce Campbell and Richenda Scott, published in the early days of the series 57 years ago (in the very same year that the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act created our first National Parks), to the most recent, Angus Lunn’s Northumberland, which appeared in 2004. With Gower, however, we break new ground in that this famous part of South Wales is not a National Park but an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. AONBS were established by the same far-sighted piece of post-war legislation that set up the National Parks – but seemingly as not much more than an afterthought, as they are buried right at the end in the section headed ‘General, Financial and Supplementary’!
Gower was the first AONB to be created and 2006 is its fiftieth birthday. We are proud to present this new addition to the New Naturalist series to mark both its jubilee year and half a century of designation of some of the most beautiful landscapes in England and Wales. Gower has long been famed among naturalists for its geology and wildlife. Protruding into the Bristol Channel from the belly of South Wales and bounded by Carmarthen Bay to the west and Swansea Bay to the east, it is a land of astonishing diversity and rich cultural history that has withstood the advance of industry and development that have been such a marked feature of neighbouring parts of South Wales over the last two hundred years.
Jonathan Mullard is especially well qualified to present this account of the natural history of Gower. A professional ecologist and all-round naturalist, he was appointed Gower Countryside Officer in 1990, the first senior AONB officer to be appointed in the UK. For ten years he was responsible for the policy and management of the AONB, during which time he developed a unique insight into the complex interactions between the land and its people that have crafted this beautiful and special place. Although he has since moved northwards and is currently Director of Park Management for the Northumberland National Park Authority, he is still researching and recording the wildlife of the peninsula.
An area such as Gower poses a particular challenge to the author. With such a marvellous variety of landscape and habitat within a relatively small area the task is daunting. From the heathlands of Rhossili Down and Llanmadoc Hill to the great wide lonely spaces of the Burry Inlet, from the famed limestone cliffs of the south Gower coast to the dunes of Whiteford Burrows, Gower has one of the richest wildlife heritages in Britain. Inevitably regional volumes often reveal something of the author’s own particular enthusiasms and prejudices, but anyone attempting such insights in Gower is likely to be frustrated. Archaeology, birds and geology; plants, insects and rocky shores; caves, lichens and mosses on dung are all treated with equal felicity and authority. It is with pleasure that we welcome this our first account of the natural history of an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.