People who walk their own or other people’s dogs on heathland in the South Downs National Park are being asked to take part in a survey to build a picture of how the sites are being used. The Heathlands Reunited project will use the results to work with dog walkers to care for and conserve this rare and endangered habitat.
Heathlands are often valued by local communities as a place where they can enjoy being outside and 78% of people who visit heathlands in the National Park do so to walk their dog. The survey will be used as a baseline to measure dog owners’ and walkers awareness of the sites they regularly visit as well as feeding in to the National Park’s ‘Take the Lead’ campaign to welcome and encourage responsible dog owners and walkers.
The survey, which takes around ten minutes to complete, can be found at www.southdowns.gov.uk/dog-walking-survey/ and closes on Friday 26 October 2018
Heathlands Reunited is a partnership project of 11 organisations working together to create bigger, better, joined-up heathlands and independent research consultancy Collingwood Environmental Planning have been commissioned to undertake the survey on behalf of the project.
Find out more about the Heathlands Reunited project
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