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Please take a minute to complete the Dorset AONB Community Tree Scheme - Survey

News Update ~ January  2023

NEWS

NEXT Great Big Dorset Hedge Meeting. All welcome.
7.30 p.m Weds 18th January. 

Zoom Meeting link:
Agenda: Welcome and overall project status
Case Studies : Mapperton, DWT Kingcombe and Wild Woodberry, Thorncombe
North, East and West Dorset - getting started
Importance of coordinators and their role 
Grants and project support
DEFRA update
Q and A if time

Phosphorus Reduction Scheme
Cross-slope hedgerow creation

Wessex Water have funding for planting hedgerows across the slope to prevent soil erosion and field run-off, with the aim of improving downstream water quality. See the full details here.

UK Government funding increases (Jan 2023)
​Defra has announced Countryside Stewardship funding increases, with some significant ones for hedges. Funding for stock fencing increases from £4.90 to £7.47 per metre. There's also an admin payment of up to £1000 for new Sustainable Farming Incentive entrants.

Great Big Dorset Hedge... on the BBC
...in The Times (firewall)
...in the Bournemouth Daily Echo
...in The Daily Telegraph (firewall)
...in the Dorset Echo

 ​Listen to 
John Calder - one of the dynamos behind the Great Big Dorset Hedge - talking on local radio about ELMS, funding for farmers to plant hedges, ​delays at Defra and calls on the Government for urgent action (Dec. 2022)

​
Farmers urge UK government to fund hedge creation to bolster biodiversity (Guardian article, Dec. 2022)

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
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.
Picture
Picture
We want to catch the imagination of people across Dorset, so the campaign takes shape and grows alongside the hedgerow.
Picture
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.
Picture
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.
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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.
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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. 
Picture
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.
Further reading and resources: 
  • Why hedgerows matter - Nigel Adams and the hedges project in Watlington, Oxon
  • Hedgerow Management - YouTube video Part 1 & Part 2
  •  The National Hedgelaying Society   
  • Dorset Hedgelayers Association on Facebook
  • ​Russell Woodham (The Dorset Hedgelayer) is running Hedgelaying taster days over the winter - details here.​
  • A Social Hedge - A Dorset project looking at the economic, social & environmental benefits of cutting and using hedge wood as firewood, with regard to those in fuel poverty.
  • National Hedgerow Week
  • Identifying and Assessing Significant Dorset Hedgerows ​

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  • Home
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  • Campaigns
    • Dorset Deserves Better >
      • DDB 080622
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    • Dorchester Transport Action Group (DTAG)
    • Local Plan / CEES
    • Dorset Rivers and Beaches
    • No Oil
    • Great Big Dorset Hedge >
      • Sign up - Great Big Dorset Hedge
    • Highmoor Farm
    • Henry - Great Big Dorset Hedgehog
  • News
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  • Local Groups
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    • Advocacy Team
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  • Members