A permaculture based smallholding near Manorbier is helping the environment by becoming part of the one planet development scheme.

The scheme, which is a policy supported by the Welsh Government, allows people to live on agricultural land, provided they are completely self-sufficient in terms of the resources that are used.

Suzanne Pearton-Scale and Mark Pearton-Scale who live on Willow Farm, explained: “We have to be self-sufficent in terms of our food to a certain percentage as well, so we grow a lot of our own vegetables and fruit.

“We are completely off the grid, we aren’t connected to anything except from a phone line.

“You have to engage in your local community and one of ways in which we have done is we have formed our own little network with local people within the village.”

The duo grow so much food that they sell whatever is left over to the local shops in the village.

They have also built up a small network with other farms in the community.

Mark Pearton-Scale said: “It’s something that we set up, but Steve Lewis initiated it really, the network is that we’ve got like-minded people coming to together in the village and in the local area, who have got a parcel of land and they are using that parcel of land to enhance the biodiversity.

“We came up with the idea of going back to biodiversity which is a way of linking people’s homes and dwellings and businesses in the local area to enhance the biodiversity on the site.”

As previously mentioned, the scheme is a way of helping the environment and allowing biodiversity to flourish.

“The overarching principle of the one planet development is to reduce your carbon footprint,” stressed Mr. Pearton-Scale.

“So you are living a one planet life, which means you’re not generating emissions, we are living sustainably essentially.”