We also work to develop livelihoods in the Park, helping to keep it vibrant and alive. To this end in 2012, we established the prestigious Pinnacle Award for young entrepreneurs with a new business idea and rewarding innovative ways of working in the National Park.
Here are some of our major achievements:
1958
Following the campaign against the plan to afforest a large part of the moor, The Exmoor Society was established at a meeting at Simonsbath House. Major John Colman-Cooke became the first chairman.
1960
The battle to stop 50,000 acres of Exmoor being planted with conifers is won. As the government offers grants to plough up moorland, the Society begins its series of
publications with its research into moorland loss.
1962
The Lyn and Exmoor Museum opens to celebrate the life and past of Exmoor.
1967
The Society raises the funds for the National Trust to purchase Heddon’s Mouth and Woody Bay and runs a successful campaign against a proposed reservoir between Lanacre and Cow Castle.
1975
The Society’s work on moorland loss is accepted as government policy. Land critical to the National Park status is to be mapped and
‘conserved for all time’.
1980s
Agreements between governments and farmers to integrate farming, forestry and conservations start to be monitored and the Society becomes involved in
planning decisions with the National Park.
1995
The Society successfully opposes the plans for a timeshare complex and golf course at Whitechapel Moor.
1996
The Exmoor Photographic Archive is set up to conserve the pictorial record of Exmoor’s past.
2004
The publication of the Society’s report
Moorlands at a Crossroads puts the conservation of Exmoor’s moorlands on the national agenda.
2007
The play
Tracks and Traces is performed in over forty schools and introduces 4,000 children to Exmoor.
2009
The development of wind farms on the edges of national parks is successfully opposed.
2012
The
Pinnacle Youth Award for young entrepreneurs is set up by the Society to encourage the development of new local businesses.
2014
The Society moves to its new headquarters in the High Street in Dulverton and engages an archivist to organise and catalogue the archive of the history of Exmoor National Park.
2016
A second archive project is launched and the Society commissions a moorland update report
Exmoor’s Moorland – where next? The Malcolm MacEwen Trust becomes the Malcolm MacEwen Conservation Research Fund under the ‘umbrella’ of The Exmoor Society.
2018
The Society celebrates its 60th anniversary with a series of events throughout the year, and commissions a ground-breaking report
Towards a Register of Exmoor’s Natural Capital.
