Progress With Bid for West Cornwall to Become an International Dark Sky Reserve
Progress with bid for West Cornwall to become an International Dark Sky Reserve nearly has the evidence together in the form of a large dossier to submit to the International Dark Sky Association. Submitting a draft Dossier is the first significant step towards designation and, it will depend how this is judged whether the next step will be a brief tidying and updating exercise or whether there are significant things we need to do to get the designation.
The map above shows the Core and Buffer Zones to the Dark Sky Reserve we are seeking to get Designated and protected
For those that have missed information on this, it is a project I was asked to coordinate and Chair as a Cabinet Member and, although I lost my place in the Cabinet, I continued with this project. Post of when I convened the first meeting of interested partners
I have to be honest, this has become a far bigger project, in terms of the time I have devoted to it, than I ever imagined. If I tell you that Cranborne Chase has taken 15 years to achieve a Provisional Designation, you will understand why striving for it after 2 years of serious hard work means I have had to give significant time to it. It maybe that when we submit the draft that we have not done enough and we too will have to be satisfied with progressing to a provisional designation but we are going all out to get our Dark Skies above our heads recognised like the landscape below our feet in the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty of West Penwith.
Could you help us achieve this?
We would benefit from organisations and interested groups being willing to engage with us in putting on Outreach and Education events. This can be on the many aspects of the benefits of dark skies and, whilst we have star-gazing covered, it would be great to have people willing to organise events to encourage businesses to reduce external lighting and ensure it points downwards (it will save them money too); events helping us appreciate and recognise the benefits to human health and the survival of many much loved wildlife, would also be very helpful. If you or your organisation could assist then do get in touch.
The reason I need more help on this is that we have to demonstrate we have an ongoing Outreach and Education programme and, as a loose partnership of organisations and Councillors, we are struggling with this.