A TEAM of Environment Agency staff has travelled to the Island to help the Hants and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust restore a rare plant to a pond in local woodland.
Pillwort is a watery fern that thrives on disturbed pond edges and is internationally threatened, but there are hopes it could become well established at Bouldnor Forest, thanks to the work.
Staff tackled willows that were encroaching onto a Pillwort site at Bouldnor and it is hoped more seeds will germinate.
Volunteers at the Bouldnor Forest Centre were also able to view six wildlife ponds created by Hants and IW Wildlife Trust with funding from BIFFA and Pond Conservation.
Toads are already spawning in them and pond skaters can be seen darting about on their surface.
Nicola Wheeler, pond officer for the trust, said: "Children using the centre for forest school activities will have a fantastic new resource to use for pond-dipping in future years."
The six new ponds are part of a larger project that has created 38 new ponds on the Island over the past year.
Many of the new ponds are close to or within Island woodlands such as Parkhurst Forest, Firestone Copse, Bouldnor and Briddlesford.
Nicola added: "Woodlands are an excellent place to create new ponds because they often have clean, unpolluted water — an asset which can enable them to become very high quality wildlife habitats."
All the new ponds will be left to naturally colonise with local wetland plants and Nicola requested that people do not dispose of unwanted garden pond plants in the new woodland ponds.
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