As part of South West Water’s resilience works, they have had to enlarge the spillways for Kennick, Trenchford and Tottiford reservoirs on southern Dartmoor. These run though heavily wooded valleys which have had to be partly cleared to allow for the major civil engineering that will follow. Our work there has included working closely with the project ecologists and securing dormouse licences, as well as “soft felling” trees (a technique whereby trees are dismantled carefully, lowering each section to the ground on ropes to allow any cavities to be checked for bats, nesting birds or dormice).