Get Dorset Buzzing reaches 4,000 pledges and needs more help

Dorset Wildlife Trust’s (DWT’s) biggest ever campaign, Get Dorset Buzzing, received its 4,000^th pledge at the Dorset County Show earlier this month. Now, Dorset’s largest wildlife charity has launched an appeal in an effort to Keep Dorset Buzzing, well beyond the end of the campaign.

Get Dorset Buzzing was launched in March at the Prince of Wales School in Dorchester. Since then, over 1% of gardens in Dorset have taken part. Local people have pledged to do at least one thing in their gardens to welcome pollinators in response to the well-documented decline of insects, including our hard-working pollinators.

Katie Ayres-Turner and her daughters Zoe, age 6 and Abbie age 9 from Tincleton were the 4,000^th pledge to take part in the campaign to make their garden pollinator friendly. Katie described herself as a novice gardener and said: “It’s a wonderful thing – I do like to see wildlife in the garden.” 

In an attempt to continue the work local people are doing in their gardens, DWT has recently launched an appeal to create even more wildflower habitat on nature reserves, parks & green spaces and farms in Dorset.

Dorset Wildlife Trust Communications Officer, Sally Welbourn, said, “After the Get Dorset Buzzing campaign ends on 31^st October, we want to Keep Dorset Buzzing. Those who have signed up already are making a big difference in their gardens, and we hope will continue to do so, but we need to make a difference on a landscape scale. This is something Dorset Wildlife Trust is in a position to do with its 42 nature reserves. Just £20 could pay for enough Dorset native wildflower seed to create habitat the size of a tennis court.”

If you’d like to find out more and donate to our appeal to Keep Dorset Buzzing, visit www.dorsetwildlifetrust.org.uk/getdorsetbuzzingappeal.

It’s not too late to pledge to get your garden buzzing for the rest of this year, and plan for next year. You can download a free information pack online, receive emails with blogs, videos and advice and collect a free packet of wildflower seeds from one of our visitor centres in Dorset. Visit www.dorsetwildilfetrust.org.uk/gdb-signup.