Mike Blackmore
@Blacky_Himself
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Environmentalist, Conservationist, River-restorationist! Opinions expressed are my own
Warminster
Joined February 2011
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Working in river restoration you see a lot of knackered river.
Occasionally however, you come across something like this 😍
#chalkstream
#ginclear
#oasis
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Italy right now.
It’s coming, and we are not ready.
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UK: "Pollution is too expensive to fix, and rivers aren't for humans to swim in anyway"
Norway:
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No it's not smoke, this is a LIDAR (laser scanning) image showing 1500 years worth of river movement. Beautifully destroying that "It's always been like it" argument!
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This year’s migration has begun. Nature is beautiful 😍
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“Wessex Water gave its chief executive, £61,548 for environmental performance, out of a total benefits package of £189,500. In 2022, the company oversaw almost 29,000 sewage spills and in 2021 it dropped from a four-star EA rating to just two stars.”
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In defence of the Environment Agency: A Twitter rant from an outside observer. 🧵
When I got into this work back in 2007, I wash honestly in awe of the EA in my area. Local officers knew every inch of their rivers, and seemed free to dream up and fund conservation projects…
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Nope. That ain’t no platypus! 🦫
Wild beaver sighted on the River Stour in Dorset
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#Sewage
Lots of misinformation being churned out about the DEFRA ‘Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan’, so here’s some context 🧵
I’m not a lawyer, but its part of my job to understand the laws that govern our rivers, how they’re applied, and how they’re supposed to work…
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500 tonnes of un-dredging ready to start .
Returning a stolen riverbed to a rare and damaged
#ChalkStream
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"No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river, and he is not the same man"
#TheOnlyConstantIsChange
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The same beavers dam 2018 and 2022 🤯
Re-visiting the R. Otter catchment after a few years to look again at the changes made by wild beavers 1/2
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Working in conservation you meet some of the best and worst of rural society.
Some amazing landowners stewarding vulnerable species and habitats, but also some deeply venomous people who seem to be broken by privilege.
Lately the latter are on the attack, and it’s exhausting 🧵
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💩 It’s been illegal for decades
💩 It’s almost legally indefensible
💩 Directors could always be prosecuted
All we needed were funds & political will to enforced it!
The new bill sets dates we didn’t need, effectively legalising pollution until those dates. In many cases 2050!
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If you want somewhere to direct your anger, look no further than those who set policy, who appoint the top jobs. Those who we put in power and gave our mandate to.
A failing EA is a government problem, a government policy, they did it and have no right to blame anyone else.
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My other (voluntary) job is looking after this bit of chalk stream.
Well… I think we look after each other 🌱
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I put this bit of wonky tree limb in a low-energy chalk stream 7 years ago. It’s since created a multiple pool-riffle sequence, and I like to think helped hatch thousands of wild fish eggs.
Probably cost 5 quid in fencing stakes and took about 20 minutes. Anyone can do it
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If you want to understand rivers, stop thinking of them as conduits for water, and instead think of them as a conveyor system for sediment, where water is just the lubricant!
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An abused, channelised chalk stream, breaching it’s artificial shackles, reconnecting to its historic course, cutting away the pony paddock grass to rediscover is original gravel bed…
Curative stuff ☺️
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A month ago this was dead straight, uniformly about 1.5m deep with a silt bed.
Today we were casually discussing whether salmon will spawn here this winter!
A
#ChalkStream
"un-dredging"
#RiverRestoration
project.
@WessexRivers
with
@CainBio
and help from the
@WildTroutTrust
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*Takes deep breath*
Artificially deep/wide rivers flow slower and silt up quicker. Putting spoil on the banks disconnects the river from the floodplain, pushing more water to pinch points (settlements) downstream. Clearing the river removes habitat, clearing the river OF fish!!
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River buffers 💧🌳
If every river had this along its length, the improvement to our biodiversity, climate resilience, water quality and water security would be absolutely huge.
Probably the biggest reversal of nature depletion we could achieve.
and it’s just so simple.
How is this for a
#ThrowbackThursday
!
This tree planting project on Stock Beck is from way back in 2012.
Riverside woodlands like this have loads of benefits. They keep rivers cool, provide wildlife habitats, filter pollutants, and much, much more!
What's not to love! 💚
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Floodplains aren't just formed by flood deposition, they're ancient riverbeds and (should) also be future riverbeds.
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From a lifeless silt canal to THIS in just 20 months! 🤯
Progress checking a
@WessexRivers
@WildTroutTrust
#restoration
on the River Test, Hampshire.
#ChalkStream
#SSSI
#WillTravelForGravel
#TheNeedforWeed
#TroutAbout
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A new technique for undoing the terrible damage caused by historic dredging.
Dead wood to be buried within the new gravel riverbed.
Kickstarting bacterial action, restoring natural, pollution-treating biological processes.
This is “hyporheic”
#RiverRestoration
!
#ChalkStream
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Un-dredging!
Returning a stolen riverbed to a chalk stream sorely missing it.
@WessexRivers
with
@CainBio
#ChalkStream
#RiverRestoration
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The
@WessexRivers
team had to graft hard at short notice to cross the finish line, but this old mill leat is finally on its way to becoming a re-naturalised chalk stream habitat.
Next summer it’ll be a riot of plants, invertebrates, and fish 💚💙
#ChalkStream
#RiverRestoration
Going, going, gone! 💥
Dam removal on the River Dever SSSI chalkstream.
@WessexRivers
with
@FiveRiversEC
; a project initiated by a
@WildTroutTrust
advisory report.
#WeirTodayGoneTomorrow
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Previously smothered in silt and tufa, this riverbed is being scoured clean by re-energised flows.
#ChalkStream
#RiverRestoration
with
@WessexRivers
and
@aquamaintain
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Check out how recently placed tree limbs naturally, simply, and almost-instantly clean this riverbed! ✨👌🏻
@WessexRivers
creating new spawning habitat for the ultra-rare
#ChalkStream
#Salmon
.
#WillTravelForGravel
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😢
There were have it
The greatest hope for reversing the ecological collapse of the UK, abandoned in a sad attempt to appease revolting backbenchers and big-agri lobbyists.
To quote Tolkien, “I was there the day the strength of men failed”
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Before 💀
After 🤔
Just 1 year later! 😍
Re-naturalisation of a hard-engineered river channel.
#ChalkStream
#RiverRestoration
@WessexRivers
with
@FiveRiversEC
and
@Aquascienceltd
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The source of the River Thames is something special 😍
(Clip: u/squidgy-beats Reddit)
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Don't be fooled by deliberately inflated figures of £600Bn and threats of rising water bills.
We can massively reduce sewage pollution for a tiny fraction of that cost with good enforcement and political will.
Write to your MP. Let them know you won't swallow diluted green wash!
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Watching the riverbed clean itself in real-time. Excess fine sediment being moved to the margins and long-smothered gravel returning to the surface.
We're only a couple of weeks into this project and its happening already!
#ChalkStream
#RiverRestoration
#Geomorphology
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One of the great things about reintroducing natural river gravel (un-dredging) is the immediate wildlife response 🐟💨
This gravel has barely been dropped in, not even spread around yet, and a wild trout and grayling have instantly appeared to check it out!
#WillTravelForGravel
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@WessexRivers
returning natural floodplain gravel to the riverbed, restoring salmonid spawning habitat on degraded and damaged
#ChalkStreams
.
We’ll be at it though the autumn, getting ready for winter spawning
🐟🐟🐟
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This is why river restoration matters
💀Before: Summer 2020, higher flows but a lifeless desert.
💚After: Summer 2022, in a drought!, flourishing with life.
#ChalkStream
#RiverRestoration
on the River Test
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Going, going, gone! 💥
Dam removal on the River Dever SSSI chalkstream.
@WessexRivers
with
@FiveRiversEC
; a project initiated by a
@WildTroutTrust
advisory report.
#WeirTodayGoneTomorrow
Draining down a channel, ready to demolish this weir and reconnect the headwaters to wild fish populations, safeguarding their future.
@WessexRivers
rescued lots of fish and released them downstream.
Watch this space!
#WeirTodayGoneTomorrow
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River restoration + good winter flows = a sparkling clean riverbed!
👌🐟🌱
This was all previously smothered in a uniform blanket of dark silt.
@theriverstrust
@WildTroutTrust
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Stand in any floodplain and you're almost certainly standing over a buried riverbed.
(beautifully demonstrated by master cartographer
@geo_coe
)
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Since 1991 it has been illegal to “cause or knowingly permit any poisonous, noxious or polluting matter or any solid waste matter to enter any controlled waters”.
Controlled waters = all rivers, lakes, ponds, groundwater, coastal waters and 3 miles out from territorial waters…
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Check this out! Weir number 4 removed in one scoop!
@WessexRivers
with
@WildTroutTrust
on the River Test
#weirtodaygonetomorrow
#riverrestoration
#fishpassage
#habitat
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The Hampshire Avon, greatest of all the chalk streams.
Ranunculus is turning brown with algae, fish are starting to shoal in small pools.
Whether they declare it or not. This is a drought, and if the Avon fails, no other chalk streams stand a chance.
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Brushwood secured over a sub-surface gravel "toe". Marginal reed turfs will be placed behind, then the whole lot back-filled with gravel and soil.
Nice new wiggly riverbank
#ChalkStream
#RiverRestoration
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Horrible gabion weir number 2 being removed.
@WessexRivers
@WildTroutTrust
@EnvAgencySE
@TimSykesEA
#weirtodaygonetomorrow
#riverrestoration
#fishpassage
#habitat
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I was stopped by a bloke impersonating an EA officer whilst fishing yesterday and asked to produce my rod licence. Unfortunately for him I was fishing with a friend of mine who is a real warrant-carrying EA officer. I haven't seen backward rowing that fast since Steve Redgrave!
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Where a company was guilty of an offence, proved to have been committed with the consent or connivance of, or to be attributable to any neglect on the part of, any director etc., he/she was also guilty of that offence and liable for prosecution.
Since 1991!
…
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6 months post weir removal, one of our chalk streams is recovering well. Gravels have been moving around all winter and now the submerged plants are starting to flourish.
This was absolutely crammed with wild trout.
#ChalkStream
#RiverRestoration
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This is ‘strict liability’ law:
- intention is not a pre-requisite to guilt.
- a person may be regarded as having caused it even if someone else triggered it.
- being aware of an incident and refusing to take reasonable prevention steps is also an offence.
V little grey area…
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Specifically for sewage, even if “the undertaker did not cause or knowingly permit the discharge but was bound to receive into the sewer or works matter included in the discharge” (such as 💩), “the undertaker is deemed to have caused the discharge”.
Pretty open and shut…
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Freshwater mussels at work 😎
Amazing how few people know these even exist, let alone what they do…
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Funny how a bunch of unelected peers can restore your faith in democracy!
Thank you
@GreenJennyJones
and
@UKHouseofLords
. Thank you
@UKLabour
for doing the right thing
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This is great but are we getting a bit fragmented? Are the Angling Trust, WildFish, SAS, RiverAction, the Rivers Trust, WASP, the Times etc. all working independently or coordinated?
Genuinely interested to know how united the campaigns are.
United we stand, divided we fall.
Support Our Anglers Against Pollution Campaign
Let's fight together for Clean Rivers, Lakes and Oceans
#AnglersAgainstPollution
#OurTroubledRivers
#AnglingTrust
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Huge team effort the last few days chasing funds to safeguard the
#ChalkStream
#Salmon
, the UKs rarest and possibly original Atlantic salmon sub-species
Facing extinction on the Itchen, failing on the Test, the race is on to safeguard the Avon population.
#WillTravelForGravel
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Result! 👍🏻
Wild trout spawning this year in
#ChalkStream
restored in 2019 by
@WessexRivers
and
@WildTroutTrust
.
#WillTravelForGravel
Photo: Jonny Walker (River Keeper)
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This is going to be huge. I’m predicting the PFAS/PFOS pollution will make the sewage scandal seem insignificant by comparison.
If you think water companies are tough to regulate, wait until regulators come up against the big chemical lobby.
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Another project signed off (thread)
1. Banks lowered, riverbed re-shaped with local flint gravel after a weir removal downstream.
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Naturalising a heavily-engineered channel below a mill and in a garden with tricky access.
All 100% biodegradable: Brushwood, chestnut stakes, coir matting, and hundreds of marginal plant plugs. It'll all be flowering wetland beds by Summer 2023
@WessexRivers
with
@Aquascienceltd
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🔔 We’re hiring! Spread the word!🔔
Who wants to come and do some chalk stream conservation/restoration? 💚💙
I’m a nice boss, honest! 😂
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Finally going some coverage.
Raw 💩 and hormone disrupting pharmaceuticals are devastating to aquatic environments, but make no mistake, anti microbial resistance is a potentially civilisation-destroying problem, and we’re brewing it in our rivers
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The oldest living group of winged insects in the planet. The only living creature with two winged life stages.
300 million years in the making and we see them for a brief few weeks each year. The enigmatic and ephemeral mayfly ❤️♥️💕
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Rock ramp fish pass mid-installation. This will connect wild trout with restored spawning and nursery habitat upstream.
Design by
@WessexRivers
, delivered by
@CainBio
#WillTravelForGravel
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We’ve had a green awakening, and that’s great. But we’ve awoken to find our green regulator besieged while we slept.
We shouldn’t be angry at those still manning the barricades though the fortress is crumbling. They didn’t lay the siege, and they’ve fought bravely throughout.
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The government is trying to amend the Environment Bill so that water companies must only
"secure a progressive reduction in the adverse impact of discharges from
the undertaker’s storm overflows"
Which is alarmingly vague, weak and loophole-ish!
Link:
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🦫 vs 🪚
That awkward moment when you realise that all those years you were just plagiarising a semiaquatic rodent!
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Update:
#ChalkStream
un-dredging in-progress...
New riverbed being gently placed by
@aquamaintain
🧵...
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‼️🚨Breaking News 🚨‼️
An utterly damning report on water quality from the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee will be released today, highlighting huge failures in government and the water sector.
The report will recommend sweeping changes in policy and practice…🧵
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Under the 1991 Act, pollution was allowed only for the discharges “made in an emergency in order to avoid danger to life or health” which I assume covers preventing sewage backing-up into homes i.e. combined storm overflows (CSOs).
This was further clarified by EU courts 2012…
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@nsummers1234
No but England has something even rarer - nearly all the world's chalk aquifer fed rivers, which should all be just as clear, but with even more life in.
Spoiler alert, they aren't!
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The River Tarrant in Dorset is a chalk stream that frequently (and bizarrely) runs dry in its lower reaches even while flowing upstream, risking the stranding and killing of thousands of fish and invertebrates.
Historic weirs prevent fish escaping, so we’re smashing them out!
Timelapse of
#weir
removal on the River Tarrant for
#fishpassage
and channel reconnectivity
@WessexRivers
#weirtodaygonetomorrow
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Out checking on one of last year's projects; a nature-like fish pass on the River Meon.
Holding up well in high flows.
Designs are in progress for further fish passage improvements downstream so we can get as many critically rare
#ChalkStream
salmon spawning as possible.
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Consenting/licensing of sewage discharges goes all the way back to The Control of Pollution Act of 1974, but was (most recently) updated by the Environmental Permitting Regs 2016. However, dumping of raw sewage has never been a consented activity -
but it has been defensible…
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A CSO or Combined Sewer Overflow is a system literally designed to pollute rivers.
It's 2020, there must be better solutions
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Update:
New re-lowered, re-wiggled riverbank shaping up nicely.
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Where it was found that all member states had an “absolute obligation to avoid spills from storm water overflows save for exceptional circumstances” (e.g. big storms).
So to summarise…
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When I started in river restoration the original WFD target (all rivers in good ecological status by 2015) felt like a tangible possibility. At the least it felt like we were working towards it
Fast forward 15 years, and the official aim is to meet target 48 years late
Failure
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A reminder that our current sewerage infrastructure is literally DESIGNED TO POLLUTE!
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The government has to officially ‘declare’ a drought.
Apparently this doesn’t yet count!
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Many quite rightly applauding the conviction over the destruction on the River Lugg.
However, few people know that post WWII exactly this type of damage was inflicted on virtually every km of every river in the country.
And most have never recovered.
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Sir David simultaneously describing what many of us are trying to do, whilst also being the reason many of us do it.
#WildIsles
#ChalkStream
#Restoration
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Last site meeting of a great
#ChalkStream
#RiverRestoration
project. 🤝🏻
Un-dredging, re-wiggling and tree-planting this section of the River Test. 💚💙
@WessexRivers
with
@WildTroutTrust
and
@CainBio
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Out on the spectacularly beautiful lower River Itchen today 😎
Looking at that rarest of fluvial phenomena, chalk stream with an active geomorphology!
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Got out today to the
@nationaltrust
's Oakley Beat on the Test, where modern fly fishing was born.
No longer a mown/strimmed intensively stocked fishery, the Trust are putting conservation first and letting nature recover. It looked great, and I was thrilled to see the progress.
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A great example of why river buffers are so vital. If it became mandatory we’d gain hundreds of thousands of miles of connected wildlife corridors..
Bigger impact than re-wilding isolated estates, proper meta-population conservation.
Fenced off stream on left, full stock access on the right.
Naturally regenerating woodland v poached ground leaking sediment and nutrients.
A scheme to support this on all waterways would be 👌
✅Habitat
✅Water quality
✅Carbon
✅Minimal loss of production
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Amazing!
The top of this oak broke off, bounced off another tree and landed bolt upright stuck in the bed!😯
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Visiting a remarkably natural, meandering and gravelly section of
#ChalkStream
, on the River Dever today. Definitely coming back this in full summer bloom 😍
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“All wildlife is dependant to some extent on freshwater”, but here in England, every single river is polluted”
David Attenborough highlights Englands utterly incredible, beautiful
#ChalkStreams
and how indefensibly shameful it is that they are poisoned with pollution.
#WildIsles
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For anyone just arriving at the
#TorySewageParty
hashtag and wants to know what's going on. Take a look at this map. Search for your home town and see how many times raw sewage was spoiled into your local river last year:
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I have 4 major chalk stream restoration projects starting Monday, 3 more soon after. I'm spending my weekend writing method statements, risk assessments, construction phase plans and emergency procedures 😖
Luckily I have our already-running projects to spur me on.
#KeepTheFaith
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No other industry would allow (or be allowed) to waste their most important resource whilst simultaneously damaging the environment in such an obvious and traceable way.
Our taxes subsidise this.
Water from the left is from permanent pasture, whereas from the right is maize
#soipatrol
#pollution
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