Dartmoor farmers work to benefit wildlife

A group of Dartmoor farmers have signed up to a new scheme to benefit wildlife in three Dartmoor river catchment areas.

So far 34 farmers in the East Dart, Upper Tavy and Cherry Brook/Lower West Dart catchments have signed up to work together to improve the natural environment at a landscape scale, to achieve greater improvements collectively than individual holdings may achieve on their own. A second scheme based around the Erme/ Yealm catchments is also being funded.

The schemes are being funded through the Countryside Stewardship Facilitation Fund which was established to reward groups of farmers for coming together to work out the best ways to improve the natural environment across their land. The scheme will be coordinated by the Dartmoor Hill Farm Project who will work together with the farmer group to identify specific priorities within their catchments and explore opportunities for enhancing these collectively.

Chris Giles, Head of Conservation and Land Management, Dartmoor National Park, Said:

‘In addition to producing food, farmers also manage many of the natural assets that we can often take for granted such as wildlife, rivers and woodlands. These catchments have been selected because of the wide range of Countryside Stewardship priorities and opportunities that they contain. The farmer group and the Hill Farm Project will decide which themes to prioritise such as soils, meadows or wetland management.

Our aim is to build on the work that many individual farmers have already done on their farms and encourage collaboration across these catchments to explore ways to make greater environmental improvements across a landscape.

Speaking about the latest round of this scheme Farm Minister George Eustice said “this fund is contributing to an important step change in nature conservation by encouraging and supporting people who bring farmers, foresters and other land managers together to improve the local natural environment at a landscape scale.’

The Dartmoor Hill Farm Project is looking for more farmers within the 3 catchment areas to sign up to the 3 year scheme which commences in April 2018. Funding is provided by Defra and administered by Natural England through the Dartmoor Hill Farm Project.