What is special?

Carmarthen Bay and Estuaries EMS safeguards vital Welsh marine biodiversity, including threatened habitats and species of European importance. The site supports internationally important bird habitats, rich intertidal mudflats and sandflats and migratory routes for fish.

The Carmarthen Bay and Estuaries SAC encompasses areas of sea, coast and estuary that support a wide range of different marine habitats and wildlife, some of which are unique in Wales. 

The Carmarthen Bay & Estuaries SAC was selected as it contains excellent European examples of the following ‘conservation features’. Conservation, or interest, features are the habitats and species for which a site is designated. The SAC site is particularly diverse, with 6 Habitats Directive Annex I habitat types and 5 Annex II species.

These are: 

Habitats
Estuaries
Large shallow inlets and bays
Atlantic salt meadows
Salicornia and other annuals colonising mud and sand
Mudflats and sandflats not covered by seawater at low tide
Sandbanks which are slightly covered by sea water all the time

Species
Allis shad Alosa alosa
Twaite shad Alosa fallax
River lamprey Lampetra fluviatilis
Sea lamprey Petromyzon marinus
Eurasian otter Lutra lutra

The features are distributed throughout the SAC with no single feature occupying the entire SAC and with features overlapping in some locations. 

A short description of each conservation feature is available on this website. For more detail visit the individual page.

Natural Resources Wales (NRW) gather information about these features of the site to build our understanding of how they are doing and help to identify and address any pressures or threats they may be facing. Some reports can be found at Natural Resources Wales / Marine and coastal evidence reports.

This information helps with feature condition assessment reporting. The 2025 reports are available here.