#cowtan — Public Fediverse posts

GOWER: The ‘cow firefighters’ — how a shared herd is grazing away the fuel that feeds the commons’ wildfires

As Swansea swelters through the hottest day of the year, a team of firefighters is quietly at work on Gower‘s most vulnerable landscape — and they have four legs and an appetite for the one grass that feeds the flames.

A community cow-sharing scheme called Cowtan — Cow Fire — is returning cattle to the Gower Commons, grazing down the vegetation that makes the peninsula’s wildfires so severe.

The commons are among the most significant lowland heathland in the world, with most of the 70km² designated as Special Areas of Conservation and Sites of Special Scientific Interest.

But almost every spring they burn. Fire crews tackled blazes on Fairwood Common and Cefn Bryn within 24 hours this April — days after seven crews spent almost seven hours fighting a 120-hectare fire on the same ridge.

A wildfire lights up the night sky on the Gower Commons

The fires destroy ground-nesting birds’ nests and burn carbon-storing peat, and graziers say they have killed livestock — including a pony last year.

Behind the scheme is Emma Douglas, a 40-year-old multi-generation farmer and grazier from Penmaen, who links the growing severity of the fires to the slow disappearance of cattle from the commons.

The culprit is molinia — purple moor grass. Dead and tinder-dry in spring, it is one of the most flammable plants on the commons, and it bounces back from fire faster than anything around it. More fires mean more molinia, and more molinia means worse fires.

Fire moving through tinder-dry moor grass on the commons — the flammable molinia the cattle graze down

Cows are one of the few animals that will eat it. They also trample down bracken and gorse and break up the vegetation, opening space for other plants and ground-dwelling wildlife.

But Ms Douglas has watched what she calls the slow “abandonment” of the commons by graziers. The area is high-risk for bovine TB, requiring costly testing every six months, and its increasingly busy roads have killed livestock in large numbers — more than 100 animals in a single year, by the graziers’ account.

Because her own farm herd moves in and out of TB areas, she needed a separate herd to exercise her ancestral commoners’ rights at all.

So she teamed up with the founders of Cae Tan, the Gower vegetable-growing scheme that was one of the first Community Supported Agriculture projects in Wales, to create Cowtan — letting residents pool funds to buy a herd for the commons, sharing the risks farmers carry and the rewards.

Shareholders get a share of beef at the end of each year and a place at an annual community meal. They also take on real responsibility — checking the herd, supporting TB tests, and absorbing any losses together.

Tanya Nash and Emma Douglas check on Aled the steer, part of the Cowtan herd

Ms Douglas said the project had become a passion. “It’s rewarding to see people who have never had access to cattle becoming confident in handling cattle and spreading the word about how important livestock are,” she said.

“There’s a narrative that livestock are terrible for the environment, so I made it a mission to display good practice to change people’s minds.”

Among the volunteers is Tanya Nash, 56, whose house backs onto Fairwood Common — and who has watched it become completely surrounded by fire. The PhD student checks on the herd, a job she describes as “life-affirming”.

“I don’t have time for my own herd, so this seemed like the next best thing,” she said. “If something goes wrong, you’ve got five people rocking up to help you. There’s a real bond around a common cause.”

Tanya Nash, whose home backs onto Fairwood Common, checks on the Cowtan herd

The grazed areas are already showing results, with heath spotted-orchids and devil’s-bit scabious returning — the food plant of the endangered marsh fritillary butterfly.

The Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales, which manages the commons, said the decline in cattle grazing had caused significant changes to the habitat. Reserves manager Paul Thornton called Cowtan an “innovative solution”, saying cattle grazing “can help break up the vegetation, creating a mosaic of habitats” — with benefits spanning habitat management, public engagement and high-welfare local food.

Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service says climate change and land-use pressures are driving wildfires that are both more frequent and more severe, and launched a Wildfire Plan in December that aims to embed fire prevention into everyday land management.

But conservation grazing brings no financial return, and Ms Douglas wants government to recognise the work. “We really need the government to respect that and help us out, whether that’s cutting the red tape around TB testing or financial support,” she said. “Farming doesn’t make a profit these days; if it does, it’s small.”

The Welsh Government declined to say whether it would offer support to conservation graziers. A spokesperson said it was “committed to achieving a TB-free Wales”, and encouraged farmers to work with their vets on biosecurity measures.

Related stories from Swansea Bay News

GOWER: Fire crews tackle two wildfires in 24 hours — Fairwood Common and Cefn Bryn — as bank holiday fire risk soars
The April blazes that show what the commons are up against.

GOWER: Seven fire crews tackle 120-hectare blaze on Cefn Bryn as windy conditions hamper efforts
Almost seven hours of firefighting on the peninsula’s biggest ridge.

YNYSTAWE: Primary school sends pupils home at 12.30 today as heat peaks — the only school in Swansea to close early
How the third heatwave of the summer is hitting the area.

#CaeTan #CefnBryn #Cowtan #FairwoodCommon #Gower #grassFire #MidAndWestWalesFireAndRescueService #WelshGovernment #Wildfire