Exmoor Ponies

Exmoor ponies have been introduced to The Forest of Dean in an attempt to preserve the natural grazing pasture from being overgrown.

The ponies were recently moved onto the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust Reserve at Edgehills, just north of Cinderford as part of a project being overseen by Foresters’ Forest, a Heritage Lottery Funded Landscape Partnership Scheme that has overseen many projects in the area. The public are still free to walk the footpaths that pass through the reserve, but are encouraged not to feed the ponies due to their wild nature.

This project was initiated because of the overgrowth of many grazing areas in the Forest of Dean caused by the forced cull of thousands of free-roaming sheep in 2001 following the Foot and Mouth outbreak.

I went to the Edgehills Reserve to find the ponies and photograph them. This idea also worked for my journalism module as I wrote a short news story about the ponies' introduction into the Forest of Dean.

 Here are my contact sheets.