Westcountry Rivers Trust Annual Review 2019

ANNUAL REVIEW 2019

CONTENTS 3

4-6

7

Message from CEO

Our Impact & Priorities

Our Land Projects

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19

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Our Engagement Projects

Our River Projects

Get Involved

CHARITY DETAILS President: Michael Martin MBE Chairman of the Trustees: Charles Huntington-Whiteley Chairman of the Management Board: Adam Fox-Edwards Trustees: P Arnott - Prof D Butler - The Lord Clinton - W Darwall Sir S Day - A Gray - G Hart - Sir D Hoare - J Ingham-Clark Dr K Lancaster - H B Llewellyn - R Simpson A Southall - Dr A Torrance - W F Wyldbore-Smith Chief Executive: Dr Laurence Couldrick Company Secretary: Kelly Sivorn Independent Auditors: Francis Clark LLP Sigma House, Oak View Close, Edginswell Ln, Torquay TQ2 7FF Registered Company no: 06545646 Registered Charity No: 1135007 Registered office: Rain-Charm House, Kyl Cober Parc, Stoke Climsland, Callington, Cornwall. PL17 8PH.

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MESSAGE FROM CEO Welcome to our review of 2019 and forward look to 2020 Despite the turmoil in British politics with the indecision in parliament, departure of Theresa May and appointment of Boris Johnson, 2019 was a great year for our charity and we continued to deliver across the Trust.

Our projects saw us secure vast quantities of improvements to both the land that drains into our streams and within the rivers themselves.

These works not only help us repair the degradation of our environment but also increase the resilience of catchments to cope with our changing climate.

Certainly, 2019 brought further increases in both the frequency and severity of floods, droughts and pollution incidents.

To deliver this change, 2019 saw the use of an innovative online reverse auction -

Nature Bid - to distribute funding from multiple partners.

This platform built on our earlier reverse auction work on the Fowey in 2015 and was used to identify areas that would benefit from enhanced soil management and tree planting.

At the end of 2019, we had successfully allocated over ÂŁ95,000 of funding to plant 16,000 trees and provide management of over 275 hectares of soil.

We will be taking this scheme forward in 2020 to further the use of Nature Based Solutions that are vital if we are to build the catchment resilience we need to address both our changing climate but also the political landscape.

Laurence Couldrick 3

WHAT WE DO We are water. It runs through our work as it does our landscapes of the Westcountry.

What we do is underpinned by a commitment to the resilience of the region’s freshwater resources.

Whether we are working with farming or fishing communities, improving river habitats, mapping landscapes or monitoring streams, it is all to bring our rivers to life and keep them healthy for wildlife and people, both now and in the future.

OUR VISION & MISSION Our mission is to restore and protect the rivers, lakes, and estuaries of the Westcountry for the benefit of nature, people, and local economies.

Our vision is to see people helping our Westcountry rivers flow freely and teem with life, while valuing our most precious of resources, water.

OUR FINANCES Our full 2019 finances will be available for viewing in November 2020.

We will update this annual report at that time and share it publicly via our website.

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OUR PRIORITIES

OUR LAND Land plays a vital role in the health and stability of our water resources. It is why we work closely with farming and fishing communities. Joining the dots between where our food comes from and what we buy in stores is vital. Our priority is to work with rural and urban businesses that rely on water throughout their supply change to inform best water-use practice to support this resource, and in turn, their business.

OUR PEOPLE To achieve our charity aims, we need people involved. We have a growing volunteer community, a strong following on social media, and engaged and interested individuals from a variety of environmental, business, and social sectors.

Our priority now is to continue to build on this while developing our fundraising opportunities and accessible public projects.

OUR WATER Westcountry Rivers Trust started more than 25 years ago; since then, we have continually sought to heal and support our water environments. Our on-going projects all work towards improving and protecting our rivers and riparian habitats, but we still have much to do. It is a priority for us to help educate and support people to value water before taking it for granted is no longer an option.

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OUR LAND PROJECTS In 2019, the Land Team extended its reach across the region with new projects and new faces bringing the team to 11.

Alongside traditional land management projects, we also expanded work that reflects interests from project funders and the farmers and landowners we work with.

Issues of climate change, climate emergency declarations and extreme weather events have made this a very topical subject. Couple this with negative messages about agriculture and the day job and the financial situation for farmers is even more unpredictable.

We worked with farmers to help them identify solutions to problems and suggest new ideas that support the farm business and our environment.

If a farm business cannot stay afloat, the impact is felt more widely than just the farm; it can affect the wider rural community, other services that rely on this business, and the social fabric of our landscapes.

Projects now consider topics such as Natural Flood Management, Carbon sequestration, and climate mitigation - all possible through land management.

Our rivers are still at the heart of catchment management, but these projects allow us to raise awareness, supported by practical experience that positive land management can bring about multiple benefits.

While Brexit looms, farmers weigh up what may be emerging from Defra’s new Environmental Land Management Scheme (ELMS).

This reflects the Government’s drive of ‘public money for public goods’ – which means society gaining more from funding offered for land management options.

It directly links payments to landowners for the services society obtains such as our drinking water provision, climate control or nutrient cycling – as well as habitat provision, pollination, recreational or wellbeing needs.

A series of Tests & Trials are being run across the UK by Defra to learn from pilot projects to inform what ELMs will look like.

The Trust is involved in several of these across the region, including on the River Fowey, River Lyd, on Dartmoor and in East Devon. It is contributing to and encouraging direct feedback from farmers to Defra that helps inform consensus of what could work and what is realistically practical.

Our work continues to support a diverse and resilient landscape, which reflects the investment made by the farming community.

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“...for the foreseeable future the river will be protected from any pollution from our farm, which is good for the community and makes me feel good too.”

UPSTREAM THINKING 2

Feedback from a UST2 project farmer

Upstream Thinking (UsT) 2 matured into its fifth year, with the majority of its 100 grant-funded projects being completed.

This included some sizeable projects on farms – implementing positive change for water quality and the wider environment e.g. yard infrastructure that reduces the risk of nutrient or soil losses across the whole farm as a result.

To the end of 2019, across our target catchments of the Fowey, Tamar, Dart, Otter and Exe, our team had engaged with another 50 individual farms, bringing the total so far to 520 in this five-year period, covering an area of 48,500 hectares.

The total investment brought about over the five years is more than £3.5 million, with the contribution from the farmers themselves exceeding the grant support (offered at 50%), which often acts as a catalyst for more extensive works – final figures will run into 2020.

The key driver for UsT 2 has been to reduce risk from pesticides in these drinking water supply catchments; the pesticide amnesty for free and safe disposal of old or obsolete products removed an amazing five tonnes of product.

A significant proportion of items were in unlabelled, deteriorating containers which present a risk of accidental leakage over time.

This included old pesticides which were banned some years ago, such as DDT and Aatrazine, highly toxic products such as Paraquat, and compounds such as synthetic pyrethroids which can have a devastating impact on many aquatic life forms.

Without a doubt, the amnesty has proved highly successful in reducing potential impacts of pesticides on both drinking water quality and the ecology of rivers, as well as a useful service to the farmers to dispose of these safely.

A full evaluation of the amnesty and the ‘cocktail’ of chemicals is being carried out to provide more insight as a result.

Focus has turned towards the development of UsT 3, working with South West Water and partners to refine the next five years.

This will include a greater emphasis on biodiversity as well as water quality, providing us with the opportunity to include habitat enhancements on farm – aligning with the changing focus of policy and support for broader environmental benefits by recognition of the value of our natural assets.

Visit wrt.org.uk/project/ust2/ for more.

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CHANNEL PAYMENTS FOR ECOSYSTEM SERVICES (CPES)

Our CPES project seeks to develop alternative markets to support water quality; it considers who are the interested buyers and sellers and is it viable long term.

There are 14 partners across the UK and France working on rivers that drain into the English Channel that have similar water quality issues.

Over two days in June, all the partners visited our focus areas. They met our local contacts and heard about our work – including plans to undertake Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) sampling to illustrate current and potential values as part of healthier soils, which improve buffering and infiltration function at a catchment scale.

On the River Lyd (Tamar) catchment, we have extended our cross-sector working with key food and drink companies keen to build resilience into their local supply chains.

Working in collaboration, the Tamar Water Stewardship Business Board has set out priorities to improve nutrient and soil management, while enhancing our natural habitats.

Together we can influence more landowners and

deliver consistent messages for good practice, operating efficiently and effectively with available resources.

In December, the Business Board and Defra contributed to a fund we offered for interventions on farms to meet these priorities; adapting an online auction tool (NatureBid) to attract a wider audience.

It saw 1.5 times the level of interested bids against funds. Works are being delivered in 2020, but the ambitions of the Business Board continue, including an open farm event in the future.

The Gara which drains to the south coast at Slapton Ley is our other focus. We have been working with Catchment Sensitive Farming and the Environment Agency to deliver a small capital grant scheme here as an incentive towards water quality improvements and an introduction to CPES ambitions. The farmers here exceeded the available grant value, bringing 132% of their investment in the first round (to be repeated in 2020).

We also created an online CPES Fund to direct 100% of donations into local action and we will showcase this to potential investors.

The work carried out in these catchments helps to improve water quality and environmental conditions and build long term resilience while also mitigating effects of climates change for the benefit of our local communities.

Visit wrt.org.uk/project/the-cpes-fund/ for more.

“Premier Foods is planting 16,000 trees in 2020 – all through working collaboratively.”

Lee Haughton, Group Environmental Manager, Premier Foods 9

DARTMOOR HEADWATERS NATURAL FLOOD MANAGEMENT

This is a pilot partnership project between Dartmoor National Park Authority, the Environment Agency and the Trust.

It is trialing the effectiveness of natural river processes, land management techniques and soft engineering approaches to slow down and store water to reduce the risk of flooding downstream.

The project runs until 2021 and will focus on the Rivers Mardle, Dean Burn, Colly Brook, Walkhampton Blackbrook and the Hanger Down area of the River Erme catchment.

These five sub-catchments have been chosen as they are all small in size (all less than 13km²) and are steep with a rapid onset of flooding, all having flooded in recent years.

We are the lead delivery partner in the Walkhampton catchment.

Within the pilot areas, there are 84 properties at risk of flooding from the main river with even more at risk from surface run-off. Downstream of Dartmoor’s moorland landscape are many towns and villages with properties at risk of flooding during flash flood events.

A combination of the geology, changing weather patterns and long established land management practices mean that soils are not absorbing and storing water efficiently, leading to excessive run-off and erosion.

Working in collaboration with landowners, we can identify opportunities to slow down, store, and divert water. This may include tree planting, building leaky dams or wetland creation.

Wider benefits of this work include improved water quality, reduced sedimentation, enhanced biodiversity and better carbon storage.

Our work has focussed on the soil hydrology, condition and run-off characteristics of the western slopes below Sharpitor and the adjoining southern section of Walkhampton Common.

Following surveys and monitoring of Walkhampton Common and the Blackbrook in the winter, we are now working in the Horseyeatt vicinity, with the co-operation of the Maristow Estate and local Commoners.

Work will include the repair of field boundary stone corn ditch sections and the localised laying of granite stone armouring, including further rock armouring around ancient standing stones to protect them from erosion on behalf of the Dartmoor National Park Authority archaeologist.

This all aids in the reduction of flood risk on the lower Black Brook due to slowed flows, less soil erosion, and good field boundaries.

Soil decompaction and wetland enhancement work is planned for in-bye land below the Common.

Rain fronts coming in from the Atlantic Ocean and Dartmoor’s topography mean it’s at risk of flash flooding.

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DISSOLVED ORGANIC CARBON

We obtained a small grant from the Southall Trust to investigate Dissolved Organic Carbon (DOC) losses from upland systems to watercourses. This contributes to water quality issues, including colour or taste, and can lead to increased treatment costs as a result.

The tea-coloured headwater streams seen in our uplands illustrates soil or plant residues being mobilised, which can be exacerbated through degraded or exposed areas – especially peatland.

Natural levels contribute to the aquatic ecosystem as a food source, but also the Carbon cycle. It is common that upland, wet/bog habitats are more acidic with lower oxygen levels – but increased DOC levels here can contribute to stream acidification further downstream and also influence other nutrient cycling processes.

Levels of DOC can affect light penetration in aquatic systems. An increase may mean the plant and animal species that rely on energy from sunlight could be impacted or lost as a result, changing the complex network of communities in these wider ecosystems.

We sampled a small number of sites on the western edge of Dartmoor on a monthly basis to compare DOC levels in headwater streams.

These were considered in parallel to work being undertaken by Plymouth Marine Laboratories for their LOCATE project.

This seeks to evaluate Carbon losses from land to estuaries and the ocean due to the potential for impacts to our land-based Carbon store, but also

how this may impact marine ecosystems as a result.

The data will be collected over six months for full evaluation.

We intend to supplement this with Soil Organic Carbon sampling at our three sites for fuller context. Initial results have shown wide variations between sites even on the same day, under similar weather conditions.

It is hoped that the findings will illustrate the range of Carbon loss across a catchment, options for mitigation to protect Carbon stores and how these are of interest to landowners and others downstream, as well as impacts to the overall freshwater and marine environments.

This work links to our CPES project and the potential of Carbon markets to support landowners.

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DEVON AND CORNWALL SOIL ALLIANCE

The Devon and Cornwall Soils Alliance (DCSA) launched in June at an event at Roadford Reservoir.

More than 110 organisations attended, with the keynote speaker Emma Howard Boyd, Chair of the Environment Agency (EA), speaking about the EA’s newly published State of Soils report.

The aim of DCSA is to build capacity and capability in soil advice across the two counties.

Our soils are in a perilous state with more than 40% of soil degraded.

Coupled with this, the accuracy, quality and consistency of advice across the region is insufficient to deal with the scale of the problem and its impacts such as flooding, drought and pollution problems.

DCSA initially focused attention at two Special Areas of Conservation catchment tributaries; the River Allen and Corry Brook (Rivers Camel and Axe respectively).

Feasibility studies will also be carried out on a further seven catchments in 2020, across the broad range of

different soil types found within the Devon and Cornwall area.

We have been encouraging those interested in soils to sign up, participate in events and increase the knowledge exchange between soil practitioners.

To date, DCSA has 249 members, 123 registered trainees and 32 registered mentors.

We have hosted three successful ‘Why are soils important?’ events, covering three broad areas on East Devon soils, Culm soils and upland soils.

These repeat events focus on the inherent capability of the three soils types and the intersection with advice and regulation, while combining class and field work.

More in-depth events have been planned and will take place in 2020.

All of the events have been run by Richard Smith with input from other soil experts.

Visit wrt.org.uk/project/dcsa/ to find out more about DCSA.

“Thank you for organising the event. It was really excellent; informative, interesting and enjoyable.”

Feedback from a DCSA event attendee

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OUR ENGAGEMENT PROJECTS

Collecting, anaylysing, visualising and communicating strategic information is the focus of our Evidence and Engagement team.

Their projects engage stakeholders, helping to ensure work to improve rivers and catchments is targeted in areas where most needed.

The team grew in 2019, with four new staff taking it to 16 and an honorary member as the team manager Lucy had her baby girl in May. The team has a hugely varied remit across the region which includes running events; working with schools, landowners, farmers, local experts, policymakers and communities; monitoring water quality, quantity and biodiversity; training our fantastic volunteers; creating rain-gardens; developing our marketing and publicity opportunities; and creating maps, data analysis and infographics.

Work continued at pace on projects large and small - significant new projects starting in 2019 included Plymouth River Keepers; Connecting the Culm; Preventing Plastic Pollution; Natural England’s Natural Capital Local Atlas project; mapping projects for a number of Environmental Land Management Scheme (ELMS) trials; and hydrological monitoring associated with the A30.

As the importance of climate resilience begins to be understood more widely, the value of community engagement in understanding and providing realistic solutions to the challenges that climate change will present in all our catchments cannot be underestimated.

In September, we hosted a successful Water Resilience Summit to help spark conversation about water resources.

This aligns with our work with stakeholders, technical specialists and policy-makers in environmental partnerships to build consensus about the challenges faced in particular landscapes and develop a shared vision of what the solutions may be.

Throughout 2019, our approach has been tested in various landscapes, at different spatial scales and with diverse stakeholder groups.

It has shown how significant positive impacts can be realised if people are inspired and empowered to play an active role in the design and delivery of environmental measures. .

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OUT & ABOUT In 2019, we hosted or attended a number of events in the region to encourage people to care for their rivers and water spaces.

Collaborating with other organisations provided us with the opportunity to share our work with new audiences. One example of this is the exciting Unseen Underwater workshop our education officer Shona arranged at the Eden Project, Cornwall, while another is the fun Bude Beaver session our senior monitoring officer Simon supported.

Sharing what we do in a fun and informative way is fundamental to inspiring a life-long love for the natural world in others.

Take a look at the map for a few examples of where we went in 2019.

Bude Beavers We explored the River Strat in Bude with the Bude Beavers. They carried out water quality tests and measured the water flow using satsumas and a stopwatch. The highlight had to be the river dipping that turned up some very wriggly young elvers.

Unseen Underwater at the Eden Project We accessed the Eden Project’s science lab to take a closer look at life underwater - watch a film about the session on our YouTube channel.

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25th anniversary celebration 2019 marked our 25th anniversary. To celebrate, we invited friends and supporters to a workshop and lunch at The Arundell Arms in Lifton, Devon, where the idea that launched our charity and influenced the national rivers trust movement, was sparked.

SPONGE 2020 To celebrate the rain garden we created with Lyngford Park Primary School, we held a celebration event for pupils, their parents and the teachers.

Citizen Science Investigations (CSI) Across the region, more than 65 CSI volunteers shared 894 river surveys with us - a vital part of our water monitoring work.

We also employed a new evidence and engagement officer Lydia to focus on supporting our CSI volunteer team. She will be launching new events and training sessions.

To find out how to take part, visit: wrt.org.uk/project/become-a-citizen-scientist/

Big Forest Find We joined Forestry England’s Big Forest Find 100 Years celebration at Cardinham Woods. Our kick sampling river session in Cardinham Water went down a treat.

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USAR

Our Using Sediment as a Resource (USAR) project aims to turn a ‘waste’ material into an innovative resource.

In 2016, we joined partners from France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and the UK in this Interreg 2Seas funded scheme to increase the beneficial use of material that is dredged from rivers, estuaries and waterways across Europe.

Current legislation identifies dredged sediment as ‘waste’ and there are strict rules on what can be done with it once it has been removed.

Despite much-dredged sediment being a potentially valuable and finite resource (it is after all largely a component of topsoil that is washed into rivers by heavy rainfall) – it is typically disposed of at sea or dumped in landfill sites.

Three of the project partners set out to pilot novel reuse applications that would help to realise the value in dredged material such as restoring eroding salt marshes, the creation of a topsoil substitute that would help protect and elevate degrading peat polders, and reusing sandy sediment in dyke building to protect homes from tidal flooding while creating important freshwater inter-tidal habitat.

The Armines research centre in France developed online resources to help sediment managers understand more about sediment issues and their options for beneficial reuse.

Our role has been to showcase ways of reducing sediment input to our rivers in the first place, by encouraging soil-friendly land-use practices.

It can take many hundreds of years for a couple of centimetres of soil to form, so it is vital to keep as much of it on the land as we can.

Sediment in rivers smothers spawning habitats and often contains pollution such as nutrients, pesticides and toxic metals, as well as being a massive nuisance in navigable ports and estuaries.

The Sediment Recycling Strategy – drafted by us with input from all partners – is a useful first step for farmers, forestry operations, highways managers and port authorities who are interested in conserving soil, minimising sediment erosion and maximising reuse opportunities.

Visit wrt.org.uk/project/usar/ to find out more.

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THE WATER RESILIENCE SUMMIT / PROWATER

People gathered at our first Water Resilience Summit in Totnes in September.

Organised by our head of evidence and engagement Dr. Nick Paling, in collaboration with South Devon’s Bioregional Learning Centre, more than 120 attendees took part to find out more about our current, and future, access to water in the face of challenging climate change circumstances.

The Summit created an innovative, interactive and inspiring way for people to learn about how they can be more water resilient, now and in the future.

As people begin to talk about issues relating to our water resources, not as a challenge that will be faced by future generations or by people in far-flung lands around the world, but as one that we will face in our lifetimes, here in the UK, the Summit provided a supportive arena for discussion on this topic, including options and potential solutions from several water-related organisations, professionals and academics.

The Summit also provided insights into how the health of the water environment affects our lives and about the work being undertaken to determine how resilient it, people, communities and businesses are.

From the Summit, we developed our Water Resilient Hub as part of our Be Watertight campaign. This will involve travelling to various locations in the

Westcountry to support people in becoming more water aware and resilient.

In addition, the Community Water Resilience & Adaptation Fund has been launched to help develop the exchange of information and for the provision of emotional and practical inspiration, guidance, and support in light of environmental challenges. The Summit has been funded via our PROWater project.

This cross-border EU Interreg 2Seas project contributes to climate adaptation by restoring the water storage of the landscape via ecosystem-based adaptation measures such as forest conversion or restoration of soil compaction.

Find out more at: wrt.org.uk/project/community-water-resilience/

“It’s restored my faith in humanity to realise that there are people engaged and doing something to get us out of the mess we’ve got ourselves in.”

Feedback from a Summit attendee

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SPONGE 2020 More than 150 primary school children benefited from learning about and looking after the rain gardens at their schools Our third year working with Somerset County Council on the SPONGE 2020 project, saw us creating a number of community-led urban flood reduction schemes in Taunton.

We worked with people to create natural solutions to local flooding issues, creating opportunities for residents to make a difference.

Those involved helped install rain gardens and water features, designed to take rainwater out of the overloaded piped system and back into the ground where it falls.

During 2019, we worked with two primary schools - Holway and Lyngford Park Primaries involving more than 150 pupils - as well as the community group at Middleway.

At the primary schools, we supported female engineers from the Royal Academy of Engineering (REEng) to run workshops and activities to highlight the varied engineering careers the schoolgirls can consider.

The children also learnt about the water cycle and natural drainage designs, which inspired their Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS), in the form of rain gardens, for their school.

Although we worked with professionals to install these SuDS, the pupils had sunny, muddy, and wet days planting them up.

Following our planting days at Lyngford Park, we held a celebration event for the children to share their work with their families.

Residents at Middleway designed and planted their rain garden, with the focus being on plants bees love.

We also produced a free guidance pack for community groups to inspire future community SuDS projects.

Sponge 2020 is an Interreg 2 Seas European project, part funded through the European Regional Development Fund, and several other funders.

Visit wrt.org.uk/project/sponge2020/ to find out more.

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OUR RIVER PROJECTS No river in the Westcountry is truly wild, but they are still some of our wildest places.

That is why it is so crucial to preserve and protect them.

The visitor may see tumbling moorland streams, babbling brooks, and meandering lowland rivers.

However, to those who look more closely, all show the scars of human-made improvements.

Weirs block waters from their natural flow. Mud pours in from maize fields. Plantations and non-native trees block the light from river algae.

Between the need to control and use our land and rivers, and our desire for the wildness of nature, we must find a compromise and fix - for the things that have gone wrong or may go wrong in the future.

The fix is the job of the Westcountry Rivers Trust Rivers team.

We know we will never stop the necessary, the negligent, and the accidental damage to our rivers.

We also acknowledge that idealising the perfect river can paralyse you from action.

It is our mission to make the best of the flawed but still beautiful rivers that we have in the Westcountry.

We hope in this report you will see the huge efforts our Rivers team has made to restore and repair our rivers to make each one a better place.

In 2019, we improved every aspect of our rivers; the quality of the water that enters them; their banks and treeside habitat; their silt, gravels and riverbed cobbles; and the man-made obstacles that block a river’s natural flow.

Join us in celebrating the efforts made to make our rivers wilder, and healthier, and get out when you can to enjoy these special places.

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WATER FOR GROWTH

The Camel and Fowey are two of Cornwall’s best-loved rivers; both rise on the high ground of Bodmin moor, with the Camel running to the North coast and the Fowey flowing to South coast.

Historically, both rivers were full of salmon and sea trout, but now environmental pressures threaten these traditionally valued natural resources.

The Water for Growth EU Structural and Investment funded project is a partnership between Westcountry Rivers Trust, The Environment Agency, Natural England, and South West Water.

Over the past three and a half years, we have improved fish passage in seven locations, and across both river catchments, and carried out over two hectares of habitat improvements.

This means more fish can get to their spawning grounds, and when they get there, the habitat is suitable for their young.

That explains the ‘water’ element of the project, but what about the ‘growth’?

The project is supporting local businesses that rely on the river and its fisheries.

Water for Growth has produced an app called ‘Fish Pass’ that enables river anglers to easily access rivers at an affordable cost and supports local businesses to supply visiting and local anglers with accommodation, equipment and information as how to enjoy the very special river fishing available across Cornwall.

In 2020, we plan to improve four more barriers to fish passage 20

FISH PASS APP

Launched in 2018, our Fish Pass app has gone from strength to strength, having already received a Judges’ Commendation in the 2018 Wild Trout Trust Conservation Awards.

Although the 2019 season brought more undesirable weather conditions, uptake of the Fish Pass app has grown considerably.

Fish Pass anglers managed to catch a total of 1,500 fish in the 2019 season, whereas Westcountry Angling Passport (paper-based) anglers landed 1,000 fish, meaning Fish Pass accounted for 60% of the total catches in 2019.

The Fish Pass app works in addition to our Westcountry Angling Passport paper system, but is a contactless system that gives anglers access to all Beat information. This includes restrictions and seasons; freedom to top up and pay for angling at home or on the go; direct navigation to each beat using the app; contactless payment for fishing at the beat; an interactive map on each beat to help anglers navigate it; and instant submission of a catch return.

Appealing to a wide range of anglers is an important task in the development of Fish Pass, we now offer more than 40 wonderful Beats, including the extensive Duchy of Cornwall waters, commercial waters, and some South West Lakes Trust venues,

exposing anglers to both the wildest and the most man-made venues in the Westcountry.

A range of species can be caught on Fish Pass beats, appealing to fly, coarse and spinning anglers. Many beats contain wild game species such as Brown trout, Sea trout, Salmon and Grayling. Others are stocked with Rainbow/Blue trout or contain coarse species such as Chub, Perch and Pike.

Beat owners can closely monitor Beat pressure/ catch returns and can remotely close and re-open their beat whenever needed.

We are continuing to develop and update the Fish Pass app, to better the user experience and appeal to a wider variety of anglers. We are looking to include any UK Game or Coarse water, both still and flowing, into the Fish Pass and hope to have more available in the future for our Fish Pass anglers.

Visit fishpassapp.co.uk/ for more information.

Fish Pass won a national Wild Trout Trust Conservation Award in 2018 21

RIVER OPERATIONS

In 2019, we took on our first River Operations Apprentice

During 2019, the Operations Team continued their larger-scale habitat management work on the Roadford Mitigation Programme and Water For Growth Project, as well as a number of other assignments.

This included supporting on-going habitat work around the River Tone in Somerset, and developing management strategies with local angling groups in the South West to enable environmentally beneficial partnership work in the future.

Our regular arboreal management of freshwater ecotones (a boundary or a transition between two ecosystems such as fresh and saltwater) was complemented with additional restorative works such as tree planting of suitable riparian species, gravel augmentation and largescale gravel cleaning programmes to improve spawning success for salmonids.

In-river and bankside habitats are regularly created using on-site material, providing refuge, acting as sediment traps, providing bank protection and increasing channel roughness.

The team also engaged with a number of local

volunteer groups to deliver some of these outputs while combining them with river cleanups.

In August, we took on our first apprentice, employed on an Arboricultural Apprenticeship programme as the range of training and qualifications align perfectly with the activities the team undertakes.

This is complimented by the additional support and training they receive from the various departments and specialisms at the Trust.

Our desire has been to provide a work-based environment where someone can learn and develop as an individual while being supported to gain work place experience and pass industry recognised qualifications.

Upon completing the two-year programme, our apprentice will achieve a Level Two Apprenticeship in Arboriculture, FAW+F certificate and an Electrofishing monitoring qualification.

The apprenticeship scheme has proved very successful and in late 2019 we began considering the recruitment of a second apprentice.

We hope to collaborate and support more projects with partners and stakeholders both internally and externally as we move into 2020.

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GLASS EELS IN SOMERSET

In 2019, we worked as part of a partnership with the Somerset Wildlife Trust, utilising European Maritime and Fisheries Funding to investigate the value of restocking glass eel into the nature reserves of the Somerset Levels.

These sites were heavily designated and important for myriad terrestrial and aquatic species, and home to an unknown population of eel.

Our aim was to understand the population structure of the eel in these reserves, which had received several large stockings of glass eel over the past few years (millions).

This restocking was part of the elver fishing commitment to sustainable eel conservation.

Using a concentrated effort to capture, mark individuals and recapture the eel in these reserves we developed a picture of the eel population in terms of numbers and life stage.

During this period we also conducted an audit of the habitats present and analysed this with respect

to the little available information on what is deemed valuable or critical eel habitats for each life stage.

The nature reserves exhibited all the features suggested as good eel habitats to support sustainable populations. However, some water bodies are more suited than others.

Ideally, for eel populations to thrive the waterbody needs good connectivity and a diverse range of habitats that suit both small and larger eels.

Finally, the study concluded that the largest bottlenecks to the eel population are suggested to be the production of sexually mature adults and subsequent silver eels that would return to sea to spawn, a concerning level of predation that outbalances food availability and a lack of adult (>300mm) eel habitat.

The work then recommended practical habitat improvements that could be integrated into the management of the reserves, specifically for eel.

Our study found that the most important bottleneck in Somerset is adult eel habitat 23

ELECTROFISHING

Electrofishing is a scientific survey method used on rivers and other waterbodies to assess the abundance, density, and composition of several species of fish.

In 2019, we conducted more than 265 electrofishing surveys within the Westcountry that consisted of both area-based quantitative surveys and timed semi-quantitative surveys.

Quantitative area-based surveying is thorough, and its main advantage is being able to acquire the highest degree of accuracy of data.

For this method, a more structured approach is required, with a defined survey area, with stop nets at each end of the site which is fished by multiple passes through the survey area, removing fish after each pass.

It is not required to remove all the fish from the area as long as the number of fish captured on each pass is declining, known as a ‘depletion’ methodology.

This method provides a more detailed assessment of fish population by recording the species, age and size of the fish caught, the results expressed as a density per 100m2 can be compared between different sites and over time.

Semi-quantitative surveying is not as thorough as the quantitative approach but it does allow a large catchment to be surveyed in a relatively short period by having a larger spread of sites.

It also provides a snapshot of the catchment’s overall fish abundance. For this method, shallow, well-oxygenated riffle habitat, which fry usually inhabit, is selected as the survey site and the operator surveys for a total of five minutes.

Using electrofishing allows us to establish a strong baseline for monitoring fish populations pre and post works, while also comparing sites that have received different intervention methods including weir modification and removal, riparian habitat works, gravel cleaning and control sites.

It also provides greater detail on the population and age structure of fish; allows for post works monitoring to assess the benefit of different intervention types and their impact on fish, and determine the impacts of incidents on the rivers such as pollution events.

In 2019, we electrofished more than 265 sites

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HOW YOU CAN BE A RIVER KEEPER WITH US We have been bringing water to life for more than 25 years.

In that time, the Trust has grown from a small team of fishing enthusiasts to a charity with more than 50 staff, including administrators and scientists, ecologists and farming/fishing professionals, and communicators and mapping experts.

But we always need your help.

Whether you can join us as a citizen scientist, helping us to monitor the health of the region’s waterways, or are keen to fundraise to support our work, we’d love to hear from you.

We believe there is a river keeper inside of us all.

Get involved with our work to help our rivers flow free and full of life, and to ensure the water which sustains us, can continue to do so, now and in the future.

Like our water, your time is precious. Through volunteering or fundraising with us, you will be using it wisely to protect this essential natural resource.

Wade in for Water with Us Today & Join the Riverlution Visit wrt.org.uk/get-involved/ to find out how.

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Bringing Rivers To Life As a charity, we value the support we receive from our funders and those who make monetary donations.

Donations always make a positive impact on our work.

You can donate any amount by visiting: wrt.org.uk/support-us Thank you.

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