A NEW project to help golf courses to become more wildlife-friendly has been launched nationally, but both Tavistock and Yelverton Golf Clubs say they have been using environmentally-friendly management for years.
A spokesman for Tavistock Golf Club said that as both their and Yelverton Golf Club?s courses were inside the Dartmoor National Park they
already had to make such considerations.
?Our course is open moorland and a public amenity, so we have to be alive to the environment,? he said, adding that they did not use powerful chemicals and had been considering wildlife ?for years?.
Moorland animals also roam freely across the course.
Their situation was different, he said, in that they could not do any work without the permission of Dartmoor National Park.
The national project is funded by the English Golf Union and the Government?s wildlife advisors, with advice by the Sports Turf Research Institute.
Golf clubs are encouraged to put up bird boxes, develop hedgerows and think about how they use pesticides. Money is available to clubs to fund training and to bring in the initiatives.