Our charity has striven to protect and restore the Westcountry’s rivers and waterbodies for more than 26 years. We are not stopping in that task.
With that wealth of experience, enhanced by our team of water environment professionals and scientists, we are well placed to work with the public and water-related organisations in doing what’s right for our water resource in the Westcountry.
Our ethos is inclusive. We are as much open to working with campaign organisations such as our support for Surfers Against Sewage and our national body The Rivers Trust’s End Sewage Pollution Coalition calling for people to support the proposed Sewage (Inland Waters) Bill as we are with water companies such as South West Water in the effective Upstream Thinking project.
Our main purpose is to see the health of our rivers and their habitats improve to support wildlife and human life. But we also know there is much to be done and myriad reasons behind our less-than-ideal river health.
In the last week, Extinction Rebellion (XR), threw a spotlight on this. Across the South West they staged demos along rivers and called for the government to support the Climate and Ecological Emergency Bill.
People-powered events such as this can all add to the urgent action needed to rectify issues, but one of our most important tools in our evidence book is our Westcountry Citizen Science Investigations’ volunteers.
Running for many years, #WestcountryCSI enables people to actively look after their local rivers or waterways. The monitoring data provided by our CSI team helps us to determine where we can deliver interventions, share best practice and make progress on river improvements.
You can see an example of where a river needs your help, and the things we monitor and how the information is used, at: wrt.org.uk/lets-show-derril-some-love/
If you want to make a positive difference to the health of your river, stream, brook or waterway across Cornwall, Devon, Somerset and Dorset, visit wrt.org.uk/project/become-a-citizen-scientist/ to get involved.
You can take part at times to suit you and do as much or as little as you wish. We even have some local CSI clusters you could join to meet others (in Covid safe ways), all with the same desire to care for our water resources.
Your input will help us to keep bringing rivers to life.
To see environmental data from the Environment Agency, visit: gov.uk/guidance/environmental-data
To read the article relating to the EA’s latest river health rating, visit: wrt.org.uk/if-a-tree-falls-and-no-one-is-there-to-hear-it/