The Dartmoor landscape is to be given ‘new life to its wilderness’ in an effort to restore nature and protect it from climate change. The ‘Vision’, convened by the Duchy of Cornwall and the Central Dartmoor Landscape Recovery Project, will bring together dozens of collaborators and proposes new approaches to grazing, biodiversity, conservation and hydrological restoration and is part of the largest project of its kind in the UK.
‘Dartmoor is a magnificent and complex ecosystem — the balance between nature and people has evolved for thousands of years to shape the landscape we recognise today,’ the Prince of Wales writes in the foreword to the Vision. ‘To keep Dartmoor special, we must respond to the twin challenges of global warming and the requirement to restore nature, while ensuring the communities on Dartmoor can thrive.’
Three key areas of focus have been identified by the Duchy of Cornwall. Firstly, closer, practical partnerships between landowners, farmers and wildlife teams will aim to foster collaboration and mutual respect in what has historically been a contested landscape. Second, a holistic strategy to address Dartmoor’s priority habitat challenges, which will see investment in peatland restoration and upland mosaic habitats. Finally, agri-environment schemes at the catchment level will connect river headwaters with their onward journey to the sea.
It’s hoped these three pillars will help realise and deliver on the principles set out in the Vision. While specific to Dartmoor, they lay out a foundation for other UK wide environmental management plans.
‘The Dartmoor Vision shows us what might be possible and how that might be achieved,’ adds the Prince of Wales, who is also the Duke of Cornwall. ‘It is bold and ambitious and something that I hope, by working together, can be delivered for not just the current generation but for generations to come.’
-
The 'greatest battle for 300 years': England's great estates face up to a green futureThe climate crisis will affect us all. All over Britain, major landowners are stepping up to tackle a warming world and biodiversity loss.
-
Find out how much of a Sexy Beast you are with Country Life's Quiz of the Day, July 17, 2025The 2000 film features in today's quiz, as does the capabilities of woodchucks.
-
'He unleashed a series of war cries, then intercepted the vole mid-air': There's nothing remotely common about the common kestrelKnown in Orkney as ‘moosie-haak’, kestrels are fierce hunters but have seriously declined and are now an amber-listed species.
-
The truth about P.G. Wodehouse: Robert Daws on playing England's greatest comic writerThe actor Robert Daws starred alongside Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie in Jeeves and Wooster back in the 1990s, and the work of P.G. Wodehouse has been part of his decades-long career ever since. He joined the Country Life Podcast.
-
Don't judge a plant by its smell: Why 'the little stinkers of the natural world' are just doing their jobReminiscent of love and with an unmistakable odour of death, the little stinkers of the natural world might incite repulsion, but they are only doing their job, pleads Ian Morton
-
Puffins and shearwaters, skuas and terns, gannets and gulls and guillemots and wings, these are a few of our favourite things (seabirds)From a heroic long-distance swimmer to a producer of spectacularly eerie sound effects, the seabirds seen swooping and diving over British waters have all manner of singular skills.
-
The red kite is a soaraway success story, having escaped extinction to become a familiar sight in our skies againUnhurried in flight and with a sideline in stolen goods, the handsome red kite is the gentleman thief of the raptor world, writes Mark Cocker.
-
‘This isn't just silver — it's a story of a man who fell in love with a woman who society deemed unworthy': The large silver sculpture of rutting stags that scandalised Victorian societyGeorge Harry Grey, the 7th Earl of Stamford, was shunned when he married a circus performer. This sculpture was his way of showing the world that he was a fighter — and it's now been acquired by the National Trust.
-
The life that thrives among the dead: How wildlife finds a home in the graveyards and churchyards of BritainHome to a veritable ‘Noah’s Ark of species’, thanks to never being ploughed, sprayed or fertilised, our churchyards offer a sacred haven for flora and fauna, says Laura Parker.
-
Peregrine falcons went to the edge of extinction in the 1960s — today, there are more of them than at any time since the Middle AgesIn the latest instalment of Mark Cocker's 'Winging it' column, he looks at the peregrine, a bird of prey with astonishing speed and super strength.
