Monday 17 April 2023

Brecon Beacons changes name after climate threat

Brecon Beacons National Park is changing name and logo to better reflect Welsh culture and fight climate change.

It will now be called Bannau Brycheiniog; Welsh for Brychan’s Kingdom.

Catherine Mealing-Jones, Chief Executive of the park, said: “As we went through the process of looking at the brand and thinking about the kind of park and organisation that we wanted to be, the old logo didn't seem to make a lot of sense; we're an environmental organisation so a giant, carbon-burning brazier isn't really a good look.”

The new logo will remove the coal-powered brazier and the previous English name to reflect the origins of the national park.

Its name change is part of a biodiversity plan, which has seen a target set for net zero by 2035.

Judith Harvey who has worked at the park for more than three decades, said: “As climate and biodiversity loss becomes more urgent for us to tackle, through my working life I've seen things swing around from being quite low priority as a subject to something that now everybody talks about and most people are committed to stopping biodiversity loss. A lot of people are committed to stopping climate change.”

Ms Mealing-Jones added: “We wanted something that meant something to the people of the area [but] using the new name isn't compulsory.

“It's something that we as an organisation are going to put the emphasis on and we hope people will use it and that they'll use it as a gateway into learning a little bit more about the area.”