Our government and the water companies' lack of effort and urgency about the declining state of our rivers and streams is frustrating. Our rivers are too precious for us to allow them to be polluted by human and farmyard sewage, pesticides and fertilisers.

This is a photo I took of the River Avon near Topsham Bridge, Hendham, Devon. It looks lovely, doesn’t it?

However, according to a report in the Kingsbridge & Salcombe Gazette:

South Hams’ beautiful River Avon is one of 20 rivers nationwide that have been highlighted by the Wildlife Trusts as being at particular risk from pollution

Read the full article here.

Please support this campaign by the RSPB to ban the industrial fishing of sandeels in UK waters.

Our threatened seabirds need your help. The UK Government could make the game-changing decision to ban industrial sandeel fishing in English waters.  Please take action today to help make it happen.

Sandeels are massively important for UK sea life. They’re a vital food source for many seabirds, including puffins and kittiwakes, globally threatened with extinction. Every summer, hundreds of thousands of UK birds rely on them to feed their young. But right now, sandeels are under immense pressure.

More information here

Please sign this petition to stop the body parts of lions killed in gruesome hunts from being bought and imported into the UK as hunting trophies.

To hunt these beautiful animals for fun is inhumane and just wrong.

Read more and sign the petition

UPDATE 17/03/2023: Ban on imports of animal hunting trophies set to become law

The government has backed legislation which would stop hunters from bringing back body parts of thousands of species, including lions, rhinos, elephants and polar bears, killed abroad. Tory MP Henry Smith, who proposed the bill, said it would help conserve the world’s most endangered species. It was approved by MPs and will now face further scrutiny in the Lords. As it has the support of the government, the Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill is likely to become law.

Read more

Today, news outlets in the UK are reporting that water companies have failed to monitor the amount of sewage being discharged into the sea in popular resort towns. This is a disgrace and I’ve supported a petition calling on the Government to renationalise the water supply as the industry, in its current form, is no longer fit for purpose.

Sign the petition

My neighbour has been moving the earth to extend his wildlife pond #FridayPhoto 📷

iPhone 11, Halide app, processed in ON1 Photo RAW 2022

Mark Barrow has spent thirty years filming underwater clips that document the state of Britain’s rivers and streams. In the last twenty years, he has seen the percentage of UK waterways classified as healthy drop from over 90% to less than 15%. Now, as water companies are effectively granted free licence to pump sewage directly into rivers, he says he has witnessed whole stretches of water completely devoid of life. View his report on YouTube

Perhaps the country is finally about to see through Boris Johnson. Everyone does in the end.

Boris Johnson is the prime minister of a country that is a genuine world leader on carbon reduction. And here he was, covering the arses of the countries that deliberately sabotaged Cop26, for no reason beyond his own juvenile boosterism.

Read the full article on the Independent

This is a disgrace.

Tory MPs have been defending themselves from accusations they have given the go-ahead to water companies to dump raw sewage in rivers.

A proposal from the Lords to the Environment Bill that would have placed legal duties on the companies to reduce discharges was defeated by 265 MPs' votes to 202 last week.

Source: Tory MPs defend votes after uproar over sewage proposals - BBC News

It beggars belief that the UK government is telling businesses they can dump raw sewage into our rivers because of Brexit-related issues with the supply chain. Boris Johnson’s “Sunlit Uplands” will start to stink if this carries on much longer.

This is the quote from today’s “Inside Politics” email from The Independent:

Is Brexit just a load of crap? Amid the well-documented supply chain and lorry driver shortage crises, ministers have given businesses the green light to dump the brown stuff in Britain’s rivers. Some companies have found it more difficult to get hold of water treatment chemicals because of supply chain disruption at ports blamed primarily on the UK’s departure from the EU.

The Environment Agency this week said companies struggling to get hold of such products would be allowed to “discharge effluent without meeting the conditions” of their permits, which normally require water to be treated.

The Green Party is furious. Amelia Womack, deputy leader, said: “This is a failure of their understanding on how our country’s most basic infrastructure works and using our environment as a dumping ground rather than addressing the root causes of the problem. “To prevent further Brexit chaos and undermining of environmental protections, the government must work to mend supply chains and work to cooperate rather than trying to look ‘tough’.”

The government says the measures are “strictly time-limited and there are robust conditions in place to mitigate risks to the environment”. Maybe best to avoid wild swimming for a while.

Read the full article here