During National Volunteering Week 1st-7th June, we try and take our practical conservation volunteers out for the day to visit another local restoration project. This year we visited the Nar Valley in Norfolk, where they have been undertaking an exciting restoration project.
Charles Rangeley-Wilson from the Wild Trout Trust and designer of the project was our guide for the morning. We were told about the history of the rivers and how a lot of the straighter chanels were created when there were lots of mills on the rivers, so that they could manage the water and increase the flows better. This meant that the orginal course of the river became lost over time.
The project looked to reinstate the old course of the river Nar through the valley, in some places it was quite hard to relocate and a new channel had to be created. We saw where natural woody debris - the larger the better - had been placed along the channel to increase the flow; work only finished last year was already florishing. The importance of creating meanders was also discussed and how working with understanding landowners all made for a great project.
The volunteers thoroughly enjoyed an inspiring and informative morning, thanks to Charles's enthusiam, with many planning to come and visit the parts we didn't reach another day.