Pant y Sais Fen is a limb of Crymlyn Bog. Pant y Sais translates as The Englishman's Hollow and is a nature reserve alongside the village of Jersey Marine in Neath. It is an important fenland site and is very accessible to visitors as it has a boardwalk constructed over from the car park across the fen to the towpath of the nearby canal. This enables people to see the site clearly.
Friends of the Earth has a long association with the site. It was saved by the actions of our campaigner Andrew Lees who gathered local residents together to campaign to save it. The site was beginning to be filled with rubbish but it was compulsorily purchased by Neath Council specifically for it to be a nature reserve. This is the only time when this has been done in the UK.
Andrew went on to become national Campaigns Director for FoE and tragically died in the Madagascan Rainforest in 1994. We helped the local residents design a memorial to him which is placed near the car park which is the remains of the rubbish tip.
Near to the edge of the nature reserve, on the Tenant Canal, a population of the extremely rare Fen Raft Spider was discovered. This is the only site in Wales and one of only three sites in the United Kingdom. This interesting spider lives on the surface of the water and can even catch and eat small fish.