Before you view

Work in pairs. What kind of problems do you think large numbers of visitors cause for the National Park?

Note down the problems that might be caused.

Vocabulary

On the left are some words and phrases you’ll hear in this sequence. Match them with a word or phrase from the list of definitions on the right:

benches tranquility erosion / erode honey pot site phenomenon reinforcing banks vegetation trodden to pieces remote enhance

a long way from roads or buildings calm and quiet destroyed by people walking on it gradual wearing away improve making stronger place that attracts visitors plants and trees seats for two or more people sides of a river something that we observe happening

Comprehension tasks

Work in pairs. What problems that face the National Park are shown in these clips of the video? Note them down. Compare your notes. What do you think might be solutions to the problems you’ve noted?

Clip 11.	We hear from two visitors. Fill the gaps in this summary of what they say: The first visitor thinks that Dartmoor should be left ____. If places like Dartmoor aren’t preserved, the people of Britain will lose their ____.
Clip 12.	Willem is at Dartmoot, a “honeypot site”. He talks about the impact of visitors on Dartmoor. Note down your answers to these questions: How many day visitors come to Dartmoor each year? How far do most visitors venture beyond their cars?
Clip 13.	Willem explains how the National Park Authority copes with some of the problems. Note down the answers to these problems below: people jumping in and out of the rivers; too many people walking across the grass; too many cars wanting to use the car parks; people not knowing where the footpaths are; electricity cables.

Join a partner. Compare your answers. What else do you think the National Park Authority could do to reduce the impact of visitors?

Follow-up

Work in groups. Discuss these questions:

1. Can you name any national parks in your country? About how many are there altogether?

2. Have you visited a national park or nature reserve in your own country or elsewhere?

3. How long did you spend and what did you do there?

4. How was it different from Dartmoor?

5. Do you think national parks are important? Why? Why not?

Writing tasks

A. Plan a 150-word article about Dartmoor to appear in a tourist brochure to inform foreign visitors about the National Park and its attractions.

1. Select what you think are the most interesting and relevant points about Dartmoor National Park from these points (you won’t be able to use them all). Add further information you found out from the programme.

2. Use these points to write your article.

3. Work in pairs. Show your completed article to your partner and ask for his or her comments. Then join another pair and read each other’s articles.

B. If you prefer prepare an article about a national park in your own or another country. Use the notes here, and what you found out from the programme, as guidelines to the points you want to cover.

Dartmoor National Park

• set up in 1951

• employs about 70 permanent staff

• area 945 square kilometers: half moorland, a third farmland

• highest point 621 metres

• one of eleven National Parks in England and Wales

• the whole of Dartmoor is granite, an ancient volcanic rock. The granite has been eroded in many places to form tors, isolated rocky formations at the tops of the hills.

• largest and highest upland in southern Britain

• exposed to strong winds and high rainfall

• relatively undisturbed by intensive agriculture

• especially interesting and good for wildlife

• Dartmoor ponies seem to be wild, but all belong to individual farmers. They are rounded up to be identified and marked by their owners in autumn.

• farming and other activities (forestry, army firing ranges, china clay, quarries and water supply) continue side by side with the recreational use of the park by visitors and the conservation of the landscape and ecology

Prehistoric archaeology

• at the start of the Bronze Age (2500 BC) the climate in Britain was milder than now-Dartmoor was covered in trees

• forests cleared by farmers able to grow cereals even on the highest parts of Dartmoor

• farmers lived in groups of small round hoses-their fields were surrounded with stone walls

• in around 1000 BC the climate became colder – higher fields and settlements abandoned

• since then moorland could only be used for grazing animals

• remains of the houses and walls can be seen today as “hut circles” and “reaves”.

Tin mines

• first tin mines were open gullies dug back into hillsides where a vein of ore came to the surface

• by the 18^th century surface deposits exhausted deep underground mining began

• major industry until the beginning of the 20^th century

• remains of tin miners’ gullies and buildings can be seen all over Dartmoor today – often covered with grass and plants.