Lobby MPS to save rivers

Salmon & Trout Conservation UK (S&TC) says that there has been no significant improvement in the condition of our rivers and chalkstreams, despite the stark warnings issued in its Riverfly Census last year.

As Shooting Times reported at the time, the 2015 Riverfly Census found that there were only 14 pristine, unimpacted sites out of a total of 120 sites sampled in the survey on rivers across England. S&TC UK has now completed the second year of its three-year national census — and the outlook has not improved.

Nick Measham, campaign manager at S&TC UK, explained: “The aim of our Riverfly Census is to provide an accurate picture of water quality, to gauge the problems we are facing and to identify workable solutions to restore degraded watercourses. To do this, we analyse the invertebrates down to individual species rather than families. The increase in resolution is akin to moving from a magnifying glass to a microscope.

“The evidence from our Census is irrefutable. Increased phosphates and fine sediments are having a disastrous impact on invertebrate communities. Loss of flylife causes major disruption to the delicate balance of the aquatic food chain, with fish, mammals and bird populations suffering as a result.”

The fisheries charity is now calling on people across the UK to act on behalf of their rivers by demanding better protection and monitoring from their local MPS.