DNP ENJOY DARTMOOR 2024 digital - Flipbook - Page 13
Donate for Dartmoor
Thank you to everyone who has
contributed to Donate for Dartmoor. Your
donations help us to look after Dartmoor,
so that this stunning landscape can
continue to be accessed and loved for years
to come.
An example of this is the addition to our
Gateway Signs, welcoming visitors to the
National Park and conveying important
public messages to keep visitors and the
landscape safe; and a project that helps to
combat invasive species that threaten the
delicate ecological balance on the moor.
Gateway signs
For the last couple of years, alongside public
donations, we have gratefully received Donate for
Dartmoor contributions from the annual Dartmoor
Classic bike ride event that crosses the moor.
Tackling invasive plants
To date over half a million Himalayan balsam
plants and 1,000 American skunk cabbage plants
have been removed thanks to funding from
Donate for Dartmoor and a partnership with
South West Water. Other invasive non-native
species have also been tackled, including 130
giant hogweed plants in the Wray Valley and
some 2,500 monkey flower plants.
Himalayan balsam can be found on riverbanks
and nearby wet woodland and farm hedgerows.
Following the last five years of effort, several
areas are now just showing a handful of individual
plants when there had been tens of thousands
present just a few years before. This has been
achieved thanks to the efforts of a mix of paid
contractors and volunteers.
You can read more about invasive plants and why
it’s so important we remove them on page 32.
The very welcome and much appreciated
donations have supported the addition of two
complete Gateway Sign sets: one at Peartree,
Ashburton (pictured) and the other on the
Moretonhampstead Road, leaving Bovey Tracey.
The signs were an update to some very ‘tired’
versions installed around 25 years ago. The new
upgrades are fixed to some very solid locally
sourced Dartmoor oak posts, so should hopefully
last just as long.
Not only do these signs welcome visitors to our
National Park, they are also used to highlight
important messages such as High Fire Risk and the
need to keep dogs on leads during the ground
nesting bird season (March – July).
Tim Russell (Project Officer) and Guy Langworthy (Chair and
event organiser of Dartmoor Classic)
dartmoor.gov.uk
Volunteers remove American skunk cabbage
Over half
a million
Himalayan balsam
plants and 1,000
skunk cabbage
plants have been
removed
To donate or find out more about
projects supported by Donate for
Dartmoor take a look at
dartmoor.gov.uk/donate or scan
the QR code.
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