6 - Networking
This blog post is a little different… It’s a holding place to remind me of what I’ve been up to recently I guess.
SusSH Rivers Assembly - 18th March 2023, Kingsbridge
I went along to the first Rivers Assembly. This was an event organised by Sustainable South Hams to begin to ‘connect the dots’ between all the different organisations and the work that they do to improve water quality and make our rivers more wildlife friendly.
There were lots of interesting talks and the opportunity to meet people and chat about their interest in our local rivers and for me to tell them about my book project which went down well and I had loads of offers of help!
It was really inspiring to see all these people come together with common interests and aims, and it has given me a gazillion ideas of things to research further and include in the book.
I was particularly interested in the work that the Woodland Trust and Moor Trees are doing to plant native trees on Dartmoor, particularly in river valleys, to provide vital eco-systems. Improving the biodiversity of Dartmoor in this way has so many benefits for the river, from reducing flooding and run-off from peat bogs, which limits nutrients in the water, to supporting Salmon numbers by providing shade for their young.
I’ve got a great long list of people I want to connect with going forwards so I can find out more!
Where The Wild things Swim - 5th May 2023, Totnes
There is a group called Friends of The Dart that I first heard about them when their facebook group popped up on my feed back in January. I got in touch with one of the organisers and we then met up for a coffee and a chat. They started up with the idea to pull together all the different people and groups that they had been coming across who all had one common aim, to create real change of the river and they are now working to have the first officially designated bathing spot on the Dart.
The talk in Totnes was their first event, so I eagerly went along to hear what they had to say. There were two invited speakers, both from the University of Exeter, who spoke about antibiotic resistant bacteria in rivers and the role that the environment plays in preventing infections.
Dr. Anne Leonard spoke about the importance of managing how antimicrobials (substances which kill microorganisms) enter the river. These sources could include sewage being releasing into the river, including overspills, contamination from historic mining on Dartmoor, farm run off and urban and transport pollution.
Elitsa Penkova, who is currently doing her PhD spoke about how she wants to identify areas of risk and the effects of antibiotic resistant microbials. She is hoping to assess risk of illness specifically from swimming in rivers.
The Friends of the Dart are getting involved with a water monitoring program and the results from this will hopefully at some point in the future help to regularly inform an app which can be used to check water quality in specific areas too which would be super for so many users of the river. I found out that companies have to report how many times they release sewage in to rivers, NOT the quantity of sewage released, that really shocked me. The number one top tip for river swimming though? Do not swim after heavy rainfall!
Friends of the Dart are planning more events in the future and their facebook page is a great place to find out more about what they are up to, see link below.
Moor Trees - 16th May 2023, Broadley Tree Nursery
Moor Trees is a charity that was set up in 1999, with an aim to recreate native woodland. Tim Ferry (left) is a Trustee, who I first met at the Rivers Assembly back in March and who then invited me to meet up with him again and come along to the tree nurseries and have a look at the work that they are doing.
Moor Trees have two nurseries, one in Dartington and the Broadley site which I visitied, near Diptford. Both sites are managed by Dave, who I also had the pleasure of meeting.
Tim explained that Moor Trees aren’t ‘re-wilding’ Dartmoor. Dartmoor will happily and quickly re-wild itself given the chance, but sheep grazing means that native trees have little chance of getting established naturally, so they are working with landowners and farmers to allow natural recovery. They are also creating native woodland by planting trees from locally collected seed, with the help of lots of volunteers!
Woodland extracts carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and locks it away which is a massive positive for climate change. It also provides a rich habitat for wildlife and helps to prevent flooding downstream.
I’m hoping to volunteer at the tree nursery very soon as they have volunteer days every week and I’m also hoping to visit some of their woodland in person too.
You can find out more or get involved with weeding, seed collection and tree planting at moortrees.org