Conservation workers have been braving the heights to protect fragile heathland on the Llŷn Peninsula.

Invasive plants, known as rhododendron, have been spreading across parts of Mynydd Tir y Cwmwd, a designated site of specal scientific interest near Llanbedrog.

Natural Resources Wales (NRW) said it planned the work, which involved being suspended on ropes over a 90 metre drop to treat and eradicate the rhododendron, which had reached a cliff face and steep ground that cannot otheriwse be reached safely.

Rhododendron may be common in gardens, but in the wild it can spread fast and smothers native habitat and plants beneath its dense canopy.

On the headland it had begun to block light, choke the ground layer and weaken the heath that defines the site.

While the rope team concentrated on some of the more trickier areas, other contractors on easier terrain used herbicide to treat the plants on easier terrain or uprooted the smaller rones by hand.

NRW says the project, funded by the Welsh Government, was an important step in restoring the coastal dry heathland at Mynydd Tir y Cwmwd.

Arfon Hughes, envrionment team leader, said: "Rhododendron poses a serious threat to some of Wales’s native habitats, and at Tir y Cwmwd it was growing in places that were extremely hard to reach."

"This rope access work allowed us to remove plants that would have kept spreading across the cliffs and damaging the ecosystem. It shows the lengths we sometimes have to go to in order to protect and restore nature."