Commitment: Any day of the week
Frequency: Monthly
Location: Furnace and Hoathly Farms, Oare Marshes, River Stour
Why do we need you?
Rivers are incredibly diverse habitats supporting a wide range of wildlife and they are currently under immense pressure. The data collected by RiverSearchers allows us to assess the health of our rivers in Kent, to track trends in water quality and identify the best management plans for the future.
We need volunteers in particular to monitor survey points on our reserves at Oare Marshes, our new reserve on Furnace and Hoathly Farms as well as on the River Stour.
Experience, knowledge and skills needed for this role:
- Flexible
- No previous experience required
- You should be happy to work outdoors
- Willing to work alone
- A passion for nature and wildlife
- Your own vehicle
- A smart phone
What's in it for the volunteers:
You’ll get to spend time along beautiful stretches of rivers.
You will be given full training on all the monitoring methods and supported to carry out the surveys. Training will be flexible and may be online or in-person as appropriate.
Reasonable travel expenses will be covered.
Aspects to consider:
- Full training is given and you’ll only be asked to do work you are comfortable with
- The volunteer role is open to applicants over the age of 18
- You will need to be fairly physically fit as some of the testing sites may have rough terrain, tussocks, boggy ground etc. that you need to be able to negotiate
Commitment:
This volunteering role is flexible and can be carried out in fair weather in your own time. Below are the three aspects of health that will be monitored and how they need to be conducted:
- Water quality tests once a month
- Habitat condition assessments once a year
- Pollution reporting ad-hoc