At the start of February, Philip Withnall got in touch with us to say that he had fixed the conservation tape near the start of the crawl in Shuttleworth Pot. It had snapped, been tangled up and thrown into a ball along with some of the supporting pegs. Thankfully the straws and sediment beyond seemed undamaged.
Philip managed to untangle the tape and re-install it along the obvious line.
This was a very quick fix, and Philip only mentioned this to us in case somebody else had reported it; But we think this is a great example of individuals taking a proactive attitude to cave conservation.
In this case, just 10 minutes taken out of our sporting trip to fix an issue can make all the difference.
We love hearing stories such as this and are happy to publicise them. Alternatively, why not post your work on UKCaving to inspire others to do something similar?
If you spot a conservation issue that you can't deal with at the time, please report it to us. If you would like to return to fix the issue yourself (perhaps with your own team), we can assist if needed. This could be through conservation advice, transport of materials or rubbish onto or off a fell, funding for materials, or lending equipment from our well-stocked store of conservation equipment. If you are planning a return visit, we can even help with travel costs!
Send us a report and ideally some photos, and we can publicise your efforts to encourage others.
Alternatively, if you spot an issue while out-and-about, but are unable to undertake remedial work yourself, let us know by emailing conservation@cncc.org.uk or report it as mentioned above. We have a large email list of conservation volunteers who love a good project!
Photos: The broken, and then re-instated tape, by Philip Withnall.