CPRE invite everyone to join the Hedgerow Hike in September to celebrate hedgerows, get some exercise and help raise funds for CPRE Sussex. You can sign up from 1 July. Find out how to take part.
“Hedgerows are vitally important, they are major features of the Sussex landscape and essential habitats supporting over 2,000 species, including our much-loved hedgehogs and dormice. Hedgerows also help in the fight against climate change. They are brilliant at capturing carbon. Each year a new hedgerow can absorb the amount of carbon produced by a car travelling over 1,000 kilometres or 620 miles – that’s Eastbourne to Aberdeen.
“However, it’s a sad fact that 50% of UK hedgerows have been lost since WWII. The Climate Change Committee has advised that the UK needs to plant 200,000km or over 124,000 miles of new hedgerows if it is to meet our 2050 net zero target – that equivalent in length to half the UK road network.
“For the Hedgerow Hike, you can walk anywhere. Around your garden, local roads, a park, local nature reserves, the South Downs National Park or an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, or even take on the South Downs Way.
“Every step or mile for which you are sponsored will help CPRE Sussex to protect the Sussex countryside and our city and town green spaces for everyone to enjoy.
“You could ask for sponsorship at as little as £1 a mile or even 5,000 steps, perhaps £30 for a longer weekend walk, or £50 for completing a section of the South Downs Way or a walk in the High Weald. It is really as flexible as that. Find out how to join the Hedgerow Hike at: www.cpresussex.org.uk/hedgerow-hike/ and sign up by requesting a sponsorship form or setting up a Just Giving page.”