The lakes will be gin-clear

The Lakes Distillery turns Cumbrian water into award-winning whisky, vodka and gin, and it has just partnered with the Lake District Foundation to work on aquatic conservation. A £25K pot of money will fund six projects including cleaning litter from lakes and rivers, removing micro-plastic from the becks that feed Ullswater, and managing habitats, including on the distillery’s home lake of Bassenthwaite (see lakesdistillery.com). In other good news for water-loving wildlife, the government is set to announce five Highly Protected Marine Areas where fishing will be banned. Allonby Bay on the Cumbrian Coast and Lindisfarne in Northumberland are the two you’ll be able to walk by; the other three are offshore.