Mountain Bikers Are Rewilding Land by Paying the Government to Do It
The dark spaces beneath the conifers make it feel as if the mountain bikers are emerging from nowhere. Racing down the hill, they slalom perilously close to the trees, bouncing over roots, rocks, and purpose-built jumps, their progress punctuated by the occasional, adrenaline-fueled whoop of delight.This is Bike Park Wales, arguably the best—and certainly the best-known—mountain bike trail center in the UK. Organized like a ski resort, with color-graded trails of different difficulties and a shuttle bus uplift, the park has been a runaway success since it first opened in 2013. It now attracts upwards of 100,000 visitors every year to the former mining town of Merthyr Tydfil, with downhill enthusiasts traveling from all over Europe to ride trails like “Popty Ping,” a legendary, jump-filled blue run named after a colloquial Welsh word for microwave.With over 40 such trails, Bike Park Wales’ owners have already turned the Gethin Woodland site, which they lease from the Welsh government, into an unlikely mountain-biking mecca. Now, this small private company is proposing something even more transformative. After a five-year renegotiation of its lease, they have persuaded Natural Resources Wales (NRW), the government agency that serves as their landlord, to embrace an ambitious nature-restoration program.Launched today, their jointly developed “Future Forest Vision” will not only bring back biodiversity to the site, it will flip the conventional business model for rewilding on its head—showcasing a completely new way to make nature-restoration efforts economically viable. While farmers and other private landowners often receive government subsidies for rewilding, Bike Park Wales is the first example—in the UK at least—of a private company paying the government to rewild public land.This unusual arrangement grew out of a mixture of environmental and practical concerns, according to Martin Astley, Bike Park Wales’ cofounder and director, who set up the park along with his wife Anna and their business partners Rowan and Liz Sorrell. Until the signing of this new, 33-year lease, Astley explains, “Gethin Woodland was run as a commercial forest.” NRW sold timber from the 1,175-hectare site on behalf of the Welsh government, and “everything has been planted with commercial value in mind,” Astley says. “So they would plant conifer trees, grow them for 30 or 40 years, clear-fell them, and replant in a cycle.”The monoculture and grid arrangement of planted timber forests leaves them vulnerable to fire and disease. Photograph: Ian Lean
A new nature-restoration project in Wales is being funded by an unusual source: thrill-seeking downhill lovers.
The dark spaces beneath the conifers make it feel as if the mountain bikers are emerging from nowhere. Racing down the hill, they slalom perilously close to the trees, bouncing over roots, rocks, and purpose-built jumps, their progress punctuated by the occasional, adrenaline-fueled whoop of delight.
This is Bike Park Wales, arguably the best—and certainly the best-known—mountain bike trail center in the UK. Organized like a ski resort, with color-graded trails of different difficulties and a shuttle bus uplift, the park has been a runaway success since it first opened in 2013. It now attracts upwards of 100,000 visitors every year to the former mining town of Merthyr Tydfil, with downhill enthusiasts traveling from all over Europe to ride trails like “Popty Ping,” a legendary, jump-filled blue run named after a colloquial Welsh word for microwave.
With over 40 such trails, Bike Park Wales’ owners have already turned the Gethin Woodland site, which they lease from the Welsh government, into an unlikely mountain-biking mecca. Now, this small private company is proposing something even more transformative. After a five-year renegotiation of its lease, they have persuaded Natural Resources Wales (NRW), the government agency that serves as their landlord, to embrace an ambitious nature-restoration program.
Launched today, their jointly developed “Future Forest Vision” will not only bring back biodiversity to the site, it will flip the conventional business model for rewilding on its head—showcasing a completely new way to make nature-restoration efforts economically viable. While farmers and other private landowners often receive government subsidies for rewilding, Bike Park Wales is the first example—in the UK at least—of a private company paying the government to rewild public land.
This unusual arrangement grew out of a mixture of environmental and practical concerns, according to Martin Astley, Bike Park Wales’ cofounder and director, who set up the park along with his wife Anna and their business partners Rowan and Liz Sorrell. Until the signing of this new, 33-year lease, Astley explains, “Gethin Woodland was run as a commercial forest.” NRW sold timber from the 1,175-hectare site on behalf of the Welsh government, and “everything has been planted with commercial value in mind,” Astley says. “So they would plant conifer trees, grow them for 30 or 40 years, clear-fell them, and replant in a cycle.”
The monoculture and grid arrangement of planted timber forests leaves them vulnerable to fire and disease.
Photograph: Ian Lean