Raising awareness of sight loss within Welsh rural areas

Published: 27 October 2026

Gareth Davies is revolutionising the way visitors with sight loss engage with our Welsh National Parks through the project See Cymru Differently.

Registered blind himself, Gareth leads the three-year National Lottery Community funded project with RNIB Cymru, which is the first time Welsh Designated Landscapes have delivered an inclusive project together at scale.

We were pleased to award Gareth the 2026 New Perspectives Award as part of our National Park Protector Awards, as well as winning the People’s Choice Public Vote. We caught up with him to learn more about the impact his work is having in Welsh National Parks and beyond.

2026 New Perspectives Award winner Gareth Davies with his trophy at our award ceremony in Westminster

Can you introduce yourself and outline the work you do? 

My name is Gareth Davies I work for RNIB Cymru and manage to See Cymru Differently projects.

See Cymru Differently project has three areas, working very closely with the National Parks and National Landscapes in Wales to make them more accessible for people living with site loss. We’re also working with the farming community to promote eye health and eye safety within farming, also creating a community and a movement of guide walkers and sighted people who can go hiking and walking with blind and partially sighted people across the countryside of Wales.

Why did you start this work?

We started See Cymru Differently project as an opportunity to put a bid in on landscape focus work or recreation which came as an idea to me and a colleague at RNIB Cymru. I’m coming from a national park, Bannau Brycheiniog and living with sight loss so I said it just a no brainer, it was something we got to do, something with national parks but also not just for people who visited them but people who live and work in them. That was really important to me so just an opportunity that came along and coming from the area and the site loss we put two and two things together and we went for it.

What impact has it had on you? 

If I’m totally honest the way the work has impacted me has been quite profound in the sense that we all talk about purpose and you know what gets you up in the morning as a person… growing up in a rural community and then losing my vision and not being able to access the landscapes in the way that I previously could See Cymru Differently has just giving me the opportunity to really sort of make a difference to Cymru / Wales and to the people of Wales so it’s just something I’m incredibly proud of. I just love the people I work with, my team and RNIB but all the friends I’ve met across Wales in the national parks and national landscapes. It’s just really sort of made a big difference to my life. It’s just made me so happy. We forget about that in work sometimes importance of happiness and purpose. It’s had a real sort of profound effect on me and I have made some real lifelong friends and I think that’s probably for me the best things come out of it so far.

What impact has the work you’ve done had on the National Parks? 

The biggest impact I think See Cymru Differently has had on the National Parks is actually raising awareness of sight loss within rural areas within the National Parks themselves amongst the staff and the volunteers. It’s just put site loss on the map, so people are beginning to think about it in the day to day jobs. Be that a warden, a chief executive or a volunteer and everybody else in between we’re also having direct hard outcomes within the National Parks. In Wales working towards various awards and visibly better standards which is something we’re doing to improve the employability opportunities for people living with sight loss, we’re working with the visitor centres to improve the physical accessibility of those areas,

finding accessible walks within the national parks for blind and partially sighted people to do, staff training across the board, we’re also doing things around the digital platforms to improve accessibility there. We put up a site loss package into the national park just to make them not just better for people visiting national parks but people who live in those areas and also importantly people who work for National Parks.

How do you feel about winning and what are your hopes for the future?

I was super chuffed to win the award today and super chuffed for the people that I work with what I really hope comes from this is the national parks across the UK see what we’re doing in Wales and reach out and work together with us so that we can make a difference to people living beside us anywhere in the UK not just today but over the years to come.