Where does our water go?

Where does our water go?

by Pete Moore, Director of Forest & Beach, October 2017

At the beginning of October we were invited to the ‘Doing Business in South Devon AONB’ which was held in the beautifully situated Venus Cafe at Blackpool Sands. There were numerous people speaking at the event which also showcases the great work of the AONB team. Mike Smith, Managing Director of The Venus Company gave an honest and interesting account of how the company was striving to become the most sustainable beach cafe company in the UK and further afield, hearing of their progress towards this was very inspiring as we are looking to improve our plastic reduction at FaB especially during school residential visits. We will be writing about this in a separate blog post soon. An interesting section of the evening was the ‘Catchment Based Approach’ by Nigel Mortimer who showcased a new animation. The animation demonstrates how we all have an impact on our local estuary and sea by what we put on our gardens and down our drains, something to really think about.

Recently I had a conversation around the fire-pit (the best place to have conversations) with a group of Year 4 children. The subject of litter and plastic litter came up and I used a hypothetical example of a plastic lighter being thrown out of a car window in Kingsbridge. Discussing rain, drains and streams the children ‘followed’ the journey of this lighter from the roadside all the way to the Estuary, Salcombe then the sea where seabirds and other wildlife were at risk of mistaking it for food. This ‘journey’ was one that the children did not want to happen judging by their responses.