Posts Tagged ‘biodiversity’
Rivers and Moorland Festival
It was fantastic to be part of the inaugural Rivers & Moorland Festival. The ‘Moor Understanding‘ event at the Watermark in Ivybridge on the 5th of June was a day of big ideas, enlivening conversations and enriching workshops, hosted by Rally for Nature, a Sustainable South Hams project. Visitors were encouraged to engage with questions,…
Read MoreMeadow Improvement at Pudsham
The DPA are proud to offer a broad variety of volunteering opportunities, with workdays happening across our land holdings on both weekdays and weekends. Our most recent conservation workday at Pudsham Meadows was on Sunday the 8th of February and we had an excellent turnout. The weather was also much kinder than it has been…
Read MoreMarvellous Meadows: Land Management at Pudsham
Pudsham Meadows is a marvellous example of flower rich grassland with associated scrub edges, recognized as a County Wildlife Site. The UK Biodiversity Action Plan identifies such fields as Priority Habitat due to their alarming decline over the past half-century. Now, they are highly localized, and Dartmoor alone accounts for about 6% of the national…
Read MoreAll Party Parliamentary Group on National Parks and National Landscapes
The DPA were delighted to be able to meet with the APPG on National Parks in Westminster yesterday to discuss the challenges and opportunities facing Dartmoor as it balances Nature Recovery, Access, statutory duties and the needs of the future. Representing the DPA were, CEO Tom usher, Vice-chair Kate Ashbrook and trustee Amita Raval. We…
Read MoreGorse Control at High House Waste
Our winter programme of habitat maintenance at High House Waste has started with several recent workdays working to clear gorse from the medieval archaeology around ‘the farmstead’. We were joined recently by the Dartmoor Youth Rangers and separately by a small team of volunteers who put in some excellent work revealing the field system walls,…
Read MoreCampaign For National Parks Conference
Last week the DPA attended the Campaign for National Parks ‘Societies conference’, a one-day event in London where all the UK’s National Parks Societies get together to share successes and problems, debate issues of importance and agree ways of working together on important issues for National Parks. It brought together thought leaders, campaigners, volunteers, activists…
Read MoreMolinia Management Report
Recently, a research project and report was commissioned by the Forest of Dartmoor Commoners Association, the Harford and Ugborough Commoners Association and the Foundation for Common Land to investigate how areas of near monoculture ungrazed Purple Moor Grass (Molinia caerulea), could be managed so that increased areas of the moor could become accessible again to…
Read MoreSwincombe Site Visit
This week we joined Laurie Phippen from the Central Dartmoor Farm Cluster on a visit to our land at Swincombe. One aim was to check on the health of the river and surrounding marshland, where there is still lots of evidence from extensive tin streaming activities in the past. Laurie came equipped to measure the…
Read MoreGuest Blog: Sylvia’s Field in April
Roz Brady joined the DPA conservation volunteers for a recent workday at Pudsham Meadows and used her time to sink into the landscape and notice the abundance of life present in the meadow. Roz is an Environmental Composer, musician, author and poet who delights in composing outside, immersing herself in the sights and sounds of…
Read MoreHigh House Waste: A Priority Upland Habitat in Dartmoor’s Dynamic Landscape
Dartmoor, with its sweeping moorlands, rugged tors, and ancient history, is a landscape of both national and global importance. At its heart lies a rare and vital ecosystem: mires, a type of wetland peat bog, which play a crucial role in sustaining biodiversity, regulating water flow, and storing carbon. Among Dartmoor’s mires, DPA’s High House…
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