Protesters voice fears over waterfall electricity project in north Wales

Rhaeadr y Cwm waterfall in north Wales. The plan would be ‘extremely harmful to the rare ferns and mosses’, said the naturalist Iolo Williams. Photograph: Rory Francis

It is considered one of the most majestic waterfalls in north Wales, a mist-shrouded torrent that has inspired storytellers and artists for centuries.

But a fierce row has broken out over a scheme to harness the force of Rhaeadr y Cwm to generate electricity, with one of Wales’s foremost naturalists, Iolo Williams, the latest to step into a growing row over the project.