Ecological Continuity Trust's Virtual Reality Tour BTS/Documentary

The Brief

We were commissioned by the Ecological Continuity Trust, who tasked us with the capture of high-resolution 360-degree footage for their upcoming virtual reality tour. This project is centred on the Llyn Brianne long-term catchment-scale experiment, a significant ecological site located in mid-Wales. Our role was to provide the core visual assets required to build an immersive and accessible digital experience of the research facility and its surrounding environment.

The work was situated at the renowned Llyn Brianne experiment, which encompasses a variety of landscapes and long-running scientific studies. Our objective was to produce a comprehensive visual record of the key experimental plots, diverse forest habitats, and aquatic ecosystems within the catchment area. This 360-degree footage will enable the Ecological Continuity Trust to facilitate virtual access for global research, education, and outreach, thereby communicating the scale and importance of this long-term study to a wider audience.

About

The Ecological Continuity Trust (ECT) is a unique UK-based charity dedicated to the preservation and support of long-term ecological field experiments (LTEs). Established in 2008, its inception was a direct response to a growing and critical concern within the scientific community: the progressive loss of these invaluable, long-running studies across the United Kingdom. Many LTEs, some spanning several decades, were facing termination due to short-term funding cycles, shifts in institutional priorities, or the retirement of key researchers, risking the permanent loss of irreplaceable data sets.

To counter this threat, the ECT operates through a strategic model of direct intervention and support. The charity actively secures long-term experimental sites, either through direct ownership or by forging legal agreements with landowners, thereby guaranteeing the physical continuity of the experiments beyond the lifespan of individual research grants. Furthermore, it provides a crucial framework for financial stability and succession planning, ensuring that a robust management structure is in place to maintain the integrity of the research. This includes the vital archival of legacy data and the facilitation of knowledge transfer between generations of ecologists, safeguarding the intellectual as well as the physical legacy of the sites.

The charity's core mission is to ensure that the unparalleled insights generated by long-term experimental ecology remain central to evidence-based policymaking, sustainable land management, and efforts to improve biodiversity in the face of environmental change. By protecting these 'living laboratories,' the Trust provides an essential resource for understanding slow-acting environmental processes, such as the effects of climate change, pollution, and evolving land-use practices. The unbroken, multi-decadal data streams from ECT-supported sites are fundamental for informing national environmental strategies and advancing the scientific community's capacity to address complex ecological challenges.

Project Details