Spring 2024 – Taking action for Dorset’s rivers and wetlands

Taking action for Dorset’s rivers and wetlands

At a time when habitat loss, species decline, river pollution and the climate emergency are at the forefront of our minds, many communities and individuals want to know what they can do to address these challenges. Rivers Officer, Amanda Broom explains how our volunteers are taking action on rivers and wetlands under the Dorset Wild Rivers project, funded by Wessex Water.

We are fortunate in Dorset to have so many watercourses and wetlands, from tiny spring-fed streams to the graceful meandering Frome and Stour and our boggy heathland mires. They thread their way through our countryside, villages and towns providing home to a wonderful array of wildlife, as well as an opportunity for us to find some calm reflection in an otherwise busy world. More people are reconnecting with their local watercourse and wetlands and want to do their bit to help by volunteering to help us in the River Catchment team. In the six months between April and September 2023, these wonderful volunteers clocked up an astonishing 1,193 hours or 170 days of work, for which we are incredibly grateful. This dedication has significantly contributed to improving Dorset’s rivers and wetlands.

What does all this mean for Dorset’s wildlife?

This happy band of volunteers has kept our beavers safe so we can continue our research project to better understand the impacts of these semi aquatic herbivores on our rivers and wider landscapes. We also have boots on the ground (and in the water) monitoring river health so we can help with faster pollution investigation and be more strategic in our delivery of catchment management. This means our volunteers are helping to protect species such as secretive riverflies, bullhead and wild brown trout, as well as some of our top predators such as the beautiful zippy kingfisher and otter. And looking to the future, our Peat Partnership Project volunteers will be key to helping us understand the potential for carbon capture across Dorset’s peaty pockets.

Volunteer hours

River restoration

Last year, large woody debris was installed into Devil’s Brook to enhance the habitat. This work saw volunteers revisit the site to record progress and changes, as well as note any necessary maintenance.

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Volunteer hours

Riverfly monitoring coordinator

The Riverfly Monitoring Scheme is run by a single dedicated volunteer coming into our HQ twice a week. Angus raises funds, recruits and trains volunteers, answers relevant queries, and represents Dorset Wildlife Trust at various meetings. In this period, he ran six training sessions for 30 people.

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Volunteer hours

Riverfly monitors

40 trained volunteers visit their allocated site once a month to carry out kick sampling and counts of various freshwater invertebrates to monitor the health of the river. This data is then uploaded onto the recently established cartographer software.

Riverfly monitoring volunteers

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Volunteer hours

Wessex Water Guardians

These trained volunteers are our eyes and ears on the ground, monitoring for any signs of pollution on their regular walk along a stretch of their local river and reporting it for investigation. We now have 100 registered water guardians.

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Volunteer hours

Beaver project fence checks

Dorset Wildlife Trust’s Beaver Project is licensed as an enclosed site and local volunteers are trained to assist with the fence inspections of the beaver enclosure. Our volunteers walk the fence line two days each week and either fix or report any maintenance or site security issues.

Beaver site enclosure fence checking and maintenance

Volunteer hours

Beaver project surveys

Volunteers assisted our staff with species monitoring, including dormouse nut hunt surveys to record dormouse distribution across the beaver site.

Volunteer hours

Volunteer work party

Beaver site maintenance day involved a group of volunteers clearing vegetation on and next to the beaver enclosure fence to facilitate fence inspections and maintenance.

Volunteer hours

Work placements

Students from a local secondary school helped our staff with beaver project site maintenance checks and monitoring the beaver dams.

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Volunteer hours

Dorset Peat Partnership Project

A core group of ten volunteers supported our monitoring work this summer to record peat depths, survey the vegetation types in our mires and heaths, install dipwells with dataloggers to record groundwater levels and take fixed point photographs.