Zoo’s wins prestigious Great British Wildlife Restoration Prize
The rescue of one of Wales’ rarest shrubs has been crowned the winner of the Great British Wildlife Restoration Prize by MPs and the House of Lords.
The winning project, preventing the extinction of Wales’ Cotoneaster Cambricus by Chester Zoo, involves the restoration of a critically endangered plant, found only on Great Orme, Llandudno, Wales. Its Welsh name Creigafal y Gogarth means the ‘Gogarth Rock Apple’ and it’s described as having beautiful red berries that resemble apples. Its wild population was down to just six individual plants in the 70s, having suffered from over-collecting and grazing.
Chester Zoo has been working with several conservation partners to prevent this plant from being lost forever, and the zoo successfully grew 30 from seed. These were reintroduced to three different locations on Great Orme restoring the current wild population to nearly one hundred.
The zoo picked up the award at a special ceremony in Westminster, organised by the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums (BIAZA). At the event (which took place on 21 January), BIAZA brought together scores of people at Speakers House including MPs, Lords and those representing zoos, aquariums and conservation organisations to celebrate the conservationists protecting our native wildlife.
“We’re delighted to be recognised by our parliamentarians. The dedication of our skilled Nursery Team has restored a beautiful shrub to a beautiful country. It’s so important our politicians champion our natural environment and it was great to be a part of the Great British Wildlife Restoration.”
Phil Esseen, Head of Plants at Chester Zoo
Coming in second was Cryopreservation by Nature’s SAFE, an initiative which works with a variety of zoos to create a genetic bio-bank as a backup against extinction. Third place went to The Feisty Five by the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland. This project is working to help recover five highly threatened native invertebrates in the wild using purpose-built facilities in their two zoos.
The Great British Wildlife Restoration was organised by BIAZA to raise the profile of native species conservation in Westminster. The UK is one of the most nature depleted countries in the world and many iconic species including incredible butterflies, charismatic red squirrels and hedgehogs are at risk of being lost.
“Nature needs the support of our politicians more than ever before. That is why last night was so important, we had politicians from across four parties come to talk about beaver restorations, leeches, choughs and rare trees. It was so important that the Minister was there to see how much support there is for nature restoration out in society and that zoos and aquariums are taking a leading role in this.”
Andy Hall of BIAZA, and the competition organiser