Loneliness of the long distance runner...

Studying the paperwork on existing projects (and having met a number of the staunch activists involved in these things) set me thinking about the personal qualities required to take on urban habitat restoration. The moniker "unsung heros" about hits the nail on the head I think. Making things happen by shear force of will, personality and persistence takes a very special (and rare) breed. It can be especially hard when none of your immediate peers are able to offer advice and practical support - simply because you are in uncharted territory with very little precedent for guidance. That's why the WTT thought that it could be helpful to get the key people from all the Trout in The Town projects across the UK together for a workshop social event. Advice and lessons learned from bitter experience will be shared/commiserated along with encouragement from those seasoned campaigners who have overcome obstacles that others are still to face. Make no mistake, these projects all come under the category "marathon" rather than "sprint". A little booze-fuelled refreshment stop/group therapy session along the way might just help to keep a spring in the step of our urban green space heroes and heroines. More details will follow when this concept is fleshed out fully.
Pictured is the post-industrial River Goyt (Andrew Parker's baby) at New Mills near Stockport - a tributary of the river Mersey. Another of the many precious streams we hope to safeguard and see go from strength to strength under local stakeholder stewardship.

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Why Presume to Remove Weirs? (with River Dove Case Study)

Weirs and the Backwards Ways that Rivers Work One of my favourite sayings on river restoration is a mangled quote from a movie "... boxing is an unnatural act. Everything in boxing is backwards: sometimes the best way to deliver a punch is to step backwards...but step back too far and you ain't fighting at all ". So my mangled version starts out "Everything in rivers is backwards...". Basically, I never seem to run out of new examples of "what SEEMS to happen in a river is actually the complete opposite of what really happens". The rest of this article looks at many of the "backwards" things about weirs and rivers - and finishes off with a real-world case-study that is playing out right now on the River Dove . One spoiler alert is that, from an ecological point of view, it is almost always safe to assume that: The best biological outcome for a river is the removal of some or all of an artificial weir. Now, I don't exp

Porter Brook - Channel Habitat Improvement in De-Culverted City Centre Stream

There will be more pictures and video to come to document this bold project by Sheffield City Council to uncover a section of stream that used to live beneath a factory floor. They are in the process of creating a "pocket park" that will provide new flood-water storage (when the rivers are in spate) and an improved public park amenity (when the rivers are calm). The pocket park itself will be excavated out from the current high ground level (and a major construction project is underway at the moment to achieve this). The Wild Trout Trust were brought in to design in-channel features and riverbed morphology that would maxmise the improvements for the ecology of the stream - including for the prospects of a small and fragmented native population of wild brown trout. The site after uncovering the stream - but before the in-channel works Part way through the Pocket Park Construction - new gabion walls and flood defenses Channel with boulder clusters, log deflector-consoli

The Wild Trout Trust: A Film by Chalkstream Fly

Here is a great short piece that captures what the work of the Wild Trout Trust is all about. It was made for (and broadcast on) the very first "World Fishing Day" - a 24hr live fishing programme created by FishingTV.com . It features TV personalities (and WTT President & Vice President respectively!) Jon Beer and Matthew Wright as well as Director of the Trust, Shaun Leonard. You can see more work by the film-makers on Chalkstreamfly.co.uk and, of course, you can join the Wild Trout Trust here: WTT Membership Paul Gaskell (Trout in the Town Conservation Officer)

Trout in the Town:

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