After this spring’s long drought, on the 23rd thirteen volunteers got to the Ollo da Roda reserve (Oza-Cesuras), trusting the weather forecasts of the long-awaited rains on Wednesday. We couldn’t have imagined that the risk was not the lack of water: after the rains, a strong frost fell on Thursday, harming both the surrounding vegetation and the trees we had planted. Fortunately, it rained again yesterday and they seem to be recovering. Work in nature always involves the unexpected.
Last Saturday a couple of volunteers went to remove litter along the coastal stretch between the A Ribeira and Alameda beaches (Miño), within the protected natural area SAC Betanzos-Mandeo. They filled two sacks of debris and removed several ropes of bateas (mussel culture rafts). They also checked if any Pampas grass (Cortaderia selloana) had reappeared in the Alameda Beach, finding only four small specimens, which were eliminated.
Today nine people have done environmental volunteering again at Ollo da Roda. On the previous occasion, what with planting and removing litter, there was no time left to eliminate the garden privets (Ligustrum ovalifolium). As spring progresses and the vegetation grows up hiding these bushes and closing in the paths, it became urgent to finish off the work.
So the objective was clear: uproot every one we could find. The volunteers needed a whole morning to achieve it. In the afternoon two volunteers filled a garden trailer to the brim with the uprooted waste in order to take them to a treatment point, and there was still foliage to fill another trailer; in total there were 9 cubic metres.
Thanks to such effective volunteering, the creation of the Ollo da Roda reserve is advancing at a good pace.
