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News Update ~ January 2023
NEWS
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The Great Big Dorset Hedge is DorsetCAN’s campaign to survey, map, plant, expand, and join up sections of hedgerow across Dorset into multiple corridors that promote biodiversity and help wildlife of all sorts. You can gauge its remarkable success when you know it’s already been featured on the BBC, in The Times and many other places (see News below).
The campaign has received a grant award from Dorset AONB to support community engagement. The core team of Julie Leah, Ian Duckworth, John Calder, Sheila Hawkins and John Blanchard have now got a detailed survey system, map and methodology in place. Initial surveys are going well with great strides in surveying areas of the Jubilee Trail in West and North Dorset and on Dorset Wildlife Trust Land and other private estates. Surveys are about to start in Wareham, the Wessex Ridgeway and in the Lyme Area and the Brit Valley. Huge support has been given by all our volunteers (in particular our Dorset CAN media) and by outside organisations such as CPRE (thank you Linda Williams) and the AONB. If you've signed up but haven't been included yet on a survey, sorry for not yet getting you out and surveying. We will do soon. The Campaign is looking for volunteers – can you help? Endorsement from Dorset AONB, November 2022
"Hedgerows are an integral part of the designated landscape and ... a hedge in good condition is a very valuable landscape asset. Dorset CAN’s focus on hedgerows and their management through the Great Big Dorset Hedge project is very welcome, particularly the robust survey of hedgerow condition that will allow us, and others, to get a clearer picture of where help is needed. The use of the Adams Condition Code will provide a landscape-scale overview that can then be followed up with landowners to offer help and support in planting and managing their hedges... The information collated by Dorset CAN will help to evidence need and continue the investment in this important part of our special landscape." Ian Rees MCIEEM, Dorset AONB Countryside Officer (see the full text) |
Main Great Big Dorset Hedge Page ~ Volunteering - what's involved? ~ Sign up as a volunteer ~ Campaign: How and Why ~ Our publicity leaflet ~ How to identify Hedge types/structures - Mapping and Improving Coppices
The Great Big Dorset Hedge
The Great Big Dorset Hedge is a DorsetCAN campaign to map, plant, expand, extend and join up sections of hedgerow around and across Dorset into multiple corridors that promote biodiversity and help wildlife of all sorts (birds, insects, amphibians, mammals, wildflowers, trees, fungi) to flourish across the county.
If you're keen to get involved, you can follow this thread:
1. Read on for more details about the idea on this page
(1a - if you want more details in a digestible form, look here)
2. Watch the invitation to volunteers (6 mins)
3. To sign up as a volunteer, please click here
4. Train yourself by learning more about using the Adams Hedge Assessment method
5. Download the Great Big Dorset Hedge MAPapp
If you're keen to get involved, you can follow this thread:
1. Read on for more details about the idea on this page
(1a - if you want more details in a digestible form, look here)
2. Watch the invitation to volunteers (6 mins)
3. To sign up as a volunteer, please click here
4. Train yourself by learning more about using the Adams Hedge Assessment method
5. Download the Great Big Dorset Hedge MAPapp
Imagine a Great Big Dorset Hedge, made up of a network of connected, well-managed hedgerows, stretching across Dorset, north to south and east to west, so that every community has an opportunity to get involved.
We're starting with hedges along the Jubilee Way and four of Dorset's other major walking trails.
We're starting with hedges along the Jubilee Way and four of Dorset's other major walking trails.
We want to catch the imagination of people across Dorset, so the campaign takes shape and grows alongside the hedgerow.
Imagine gaps or lost connections in a Great Big Dorset Hedge being planted up, in many cases by local tree planting groups with the young and old working side by side, connected by a common desire to see more hedges and trees in Dorset.
Imagine the Great Big Dorset Hedge helping people to feel more connected with the places where they live and work, with nature, and with their communities through a shared scheme that actively helps nature recovery in Dorset.
Imagine helping communities to plant and look after more hedgerow trees, encouraging them to talk about them, to celebrate their companionship and the many benefits they bring us and the natural world.
We are starting with the Jubilee Trail, the Stour Valley Way, the Brit Valley Trail, the Wareham Forest Way and the Purbeck Wayt, but the more wandering and diverse the hedge becomes, the more it will start to form a giant network of natural connections and wildlife-friendly corridors.
It might take a generation for it to stretch the length and breadth of the county.
It might take a generation for it to stretch the length and breadth of the county.
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The Great Big Dorset Hedge: How and Why?
The Great Big Dorset Hedge Publicity Leaflet The Great Big Dorset Hedge: Poster The Great Big Dorset Hedge MAPapp We need volunteers to help with the project We aim to work closely with the national Nature Recovery Network and Local Nature Recovery Strategies.
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Further reading and resources:
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