There are several really active and very inspiring nature recovery projects happening on Devon’s rivers, and not just on the Sid.
Yesterday’s episode of ‘Tales from the Riverbank’ on Channel 5 saw a trip down the Dart for Claire Balding.
She goes on a series of walks and tells the stories of the Dart, including looking at the efforts being made to help nature recover along this fine stretch of water:
At the gateway of Dartmoor lies Buckfast Abbey, where the monks there have been custodians of the land and river for centuries, and a newly installed state-of-the-art fish pass is hopefully going to boost the Dart’s salmon numbers.
If there was one way Clare would choose to end her dynamic Dart adventure it would probably be a wildlife walk. And that’s exactly what she does, as she reaches the river’s source, surrounded by some of Britain’s most ancient and magical woodland.
In fact, despite the Friends of the Dart pointing a finger at a South West Water sewage plant (this week), the River Dart is the only freshwater site in the UK to pass water quality tests (as of 2022).
And in the spring of last year, the river was awarded a record number of Bathing Water sites:
The River Dart has just become the first river in the UK to achieve Designated Bathing Water status for a record number of individual sites, thanks to an eighteen month grassroots campaign by the community action group Friends Of The Dart (FoD).
Indeed, there’s quite a history of angling along the River Dart and last year the saltmarsh was restored on the lower parts of the river. All good news.
But do see what the Friends of the Dart are up to: very active and very inspiring!
…