DEVON Wildlife Trust is celebrating the news that it has received a £38,000 funding boost from SITA Trust to support its Emsworthy Mire Restoration Project. 

Emsworthy Mire forms part of Devon Wildlife Trust's beautiful Emsworthy nature reserve. The reserve sits between Haytor and Widecombe-in the-Moor, and is a very popular spot with walkers and other visitors.

Emsworthy's mire is a particularly good example of a valley mire — areas of water-logged deep peat in valley bottoms with characteristic acid wetland plant communities. The valley mires on Dartmoor, including Emsworthy's, are of international importance to wildlife and are of high quality with many rare plants.

Devon Wildlife Trust's Steve Hussey said: 'Emsworthy's mire is especially rich in wildlife.

'Some of the characteristic plant species which are supported there are bog asphodel, round-leaved sundew, pale butterwort, bog bean, cotton grass and marsh lousewort. In summer, the mire is home to many dragonflies and other insects including keeled skimmers and the rare marsh fritillary butterfly.

'In winter, it is wading birds such as snipe and golden plover that visitors will see.'

However, the mire and its plant and animal communities are at risk because it borders semi-natural grassland and open moorland grazed by livestock. 

Stone walls and fence boundaries which once kept livestock well away from the mire have fallen into disrepair and this has led to the site being over-grazed and its condition has deteriorated.

Now, funding from SITA Trust will allow Devon Wildlife Trust to restore the valley mire.

Specifically, it will allow for the rebuilding and repair of the historically important dry stone walls between the mire and surrounding fields, installation of new fencing along the mire's other boundaries, and control of encroaching scrub woodland.