The Dartmoor Farmers Association are seeking to build on a very successful pilot project, aiming to deliver an additional 25 bespoke and engaging educational 'Farm to Fork' school visits for children. This will provide a unique opportunity for school children to visit and experience a farm on Dartmoor. At least 11 farms will be hosting and delivering the 25 school visits. The visits focus on increasing children’s understanding of where their food comes from, as well as the critical links between farming and nature.

This project aims to install 5 wooden boardwalks (totalling 42m in length) over fragile marshy areas of Padley Common, allowing easier, more enjoyable and safer public access around the common. In addition to this, at the two key access points onto Padley Common, kissing gates will be replaced with gates that have easy-to-use latch systems. One interpretation board will also be installed, which will inform the public about the existing Marsh Fritillary habitat found on Padley Common, the importance of livestock grazing on common land to maintain Rhos pasture, and how the local public can get involved in maintaining the common through volunteering.

A project aiming to improve Shallowford Farm’s engagement and interpretation by increasing farm familiarisation before a school visit, and addressing an existing issue of pre-visit anxiety. This includes updating their ‘Countryside Code’ poster which is used for every visiting school group, a new brand guide and logo, standardised signage for farm buildings, an engaging farm map and improved promotional/educational leaflets. This project will help to contextualise and understand where children will be visiting ahead of signing up, and reduce the fear of the unknown.

This project seeks to secure wildfire mitigation equipment that will enable continued habitat management and effective wildfire prevention on Mary Tavy common. With the recognised increase in fire load across the Dartmoor commons, the risk to the habitat from uncontrolled wildfires is significantly heightened. This equipment to be used by the commoners in the case of a wildfire, alongside the fire service.

This project aims to support a Chagford based group of small holders, enabling full scale hay meadow restoration across our combined 86 hectares of land. This included support towards a seed separator to clean the brush harvested seed, alongside a hydraulic arm, allowing easier and safer transportation between their farms. These items will improve the processing ability of the collective to harvest, collect, sort and redistribute a wide variety of wild hay meadow seed in order to support biodiversity and improve soil health across the three farms.

This project aims to restore degraded Rhos Pasture habitat and improve connectivity to the adjacent common. The site needed a corridor of scrub and encroaching tree clearance, as recommended by Butterfly Conservation, because the adjacent habitat is currently in good condition with an existing population of Marsh fritillary butterflies residing there. Therefore, the work aims to improve and connect habitat, as well as allow the introduction of controlled conservation grazing by installing fencing around the perimeter.

The purchase of a mobile water trough and portable electric fencing/energizer kit to enable short-duration, high‑frequency rotational grazing across 10 ha of pasture, supporting ongoing meadow restoration and conservation grazing across the farm. This project also included the purchase of a bale unroller to facilitate a rotational grazing system and reduce winter damage by the existing ring feeder, along with 1 ha of encroaching gorse and scrub clearance to increase an area of meadow restoration.

A project centred around the creation of a 300m permissive path through the land at Epona, which will link up two popular Public Rights of Way routes, creating a more accessible and enjoyable route for the public. This included the installing accessible gateways with trombone handles and resurfacing a track to make it more suitable for all ability levels to access the land. In addition to this, 60  metres of diverse hedgerow was planted to improve habitat connectivity, and electric fencing was purchased to allow improved control of livestock on the site.

The delivery of a one-day cattle behaviour course, led by cattle behaviour expert Miriam Parker, enabling participating graziers to build skills to better understand behavioural drivers and mitigate cattle incidents. This project also included the provision of cattle signage, which participating graziers can install on the common to improve public awareness and education.

A project supporting the purchase of a thermal imagery drone to enable improved identification, monitoring, mapping and recording of deer across the existing large landowners the applicant works with, such as the Woodland Trust and National Trust, and also the Teign Valley Facilitation Fund and East Dartmoor Landscape Recovery. This will enable improved herd structure data to be mapped and recorded, such as species, age and sex, which will then inform evidence-led and collaborative deer management at a landscape-scale.

This project is the product of a series of discussions amongst landowners, graziers and commons secretaries. It is seeking to build on the MOR1 element of the Sustainable Farming Incentive by improving the quantity, quality and relevance of data collection. The ambition is to develop a universal product for the uplands which can capture, inform and shape commons management. This will include designing, field testing and evaluating an intuitive and bespoke App, designed for Dartmoor’s soils and habitats. This will identify the attributes at multiple sample points and build a detailed picture of resource type, condition and management options. The project will provide a localised assessment tool to support land managers at a spatial level. This will be achieved and driven by a small steering group (landowners, graziers and the Dartmoor Hill Farm Project) with the input of specialists.

This is the third and final phase of a 3 year project that revolves around 'The Mossy Carpet', created by the Art and Energy Collective. This collection of upcycled yarn pompoms and textile tufts stitched to Dartmoor wool fleece, has been created by thousands of volunteers over more than two years and is now over 80m long. Over the course of the project, the Collective have worked with numerous schools, farmers, commoners as well as members of the public and various stake holder organisations around Dartmoor to educate and celebrate the (pompom) mosses of our peatland landscapes, which hold giant volumes of carbon underground, create fantastic and diverse habitats as well as slow the flow and filter our water.  This final phase includes a week-long local event displaying exhibitions, talks, displays and films to engage a wider and new audience in the importance of land management, especially on Dartmoor.

This project looks to make a number of improvements to increase the accessibility and enjoyment for a wider audience of visitors to the Lydford Gorge site along their Access for All route. These works include replacing the existing bird hide with larger hide that is fully wheelchair accessible, resurfacing 650m of footpath with fine wearing course, improving the pond/wetland habitat by installing 10 small leaky dams along an existing ditch, constructing a wheelchair accessible viewing platform and managing vegetation around the historical railway structures.

This project aims to create a  real-time, editable & interactive GIS map for the common. This map would be designed specifically to help commoners capture and store their geo data, make more informed decisions regarding managing the common and address current issues that need solving. The mapping data will also be made available to assist other wider-Dartmoor mapping projects in the future.

This project includes conservation grazing, in addition to meadow and wetland restoration for marsh fritillaries and species diversity at Heckwood & Holetown, as a pioneer project within the Walkham Valley. This includes restoring species-rich meadows, installing leaky dams and implementing Virtual Fencing collars to target their cattle grazing in order to restore the hard to manage areas on site, including marsh and wood pasture, with a key focus of grazing management to help support marsh fritillaries. These aspects will be demonstrated to local landowners within the Walkham Valley and further afield during an engagement event focused on nature restoration.

This project aims to upgrade the 30-year-old ‘tool shed’ located within the National Trust’s Finch Foundry, which acts as the base/hub for the Sticklepath and Okehampton Conservation Group (StOC). StOC was established in 1991, they aim to preserve and improve the natural environment in the Okehampton and North Dartmoor area by contributing to conservation work identified by the community, coordinating the efforts of local volunteers and supporting existing conservation projects. Their tools are stored in their shed, which acts as a base for the group to meet, discuss and plan works. The current shed is now unfit for use, and an upgrade would therefore provide a dry and secure space, both for volunteers and for the tools they use.

This project looks to open up an area of woodland to enable greater connection to the site through the delivery of educational visits. This includes woodland survey work, tree planting and three educational access visits which will educate the public about the need for maintenance, preservation and connection with the natural world.