Restoring our rivers

We’d like to thank supporters for helping to raise awareness about the serious condition of the water quality on the River Wye. In the first phase of our campaign, over 5,800 messages were sent to the Ministers for Climate Change and Rural Affairs, asking them to save the Wye. Then, an incredible 7,443 people took part in the second phase of our campaign, asking Welsh Government and Natural Resources Wales to work together to fund, resource and commit to an action plan to save the Wye. Your efforts helped to put the River Wye on the agenda!

In the most recent phase of Radnorshire Wildlife Trust’s campaigning efforts, a platform called PostBug was used to give supporters the opportunity to send a postcard to their Constituent Member of Senedd asking them to ensure that the new Agriculture (Wales) Bill helps to deliver the essential change needed on the Wye. A total of 106 postcards were sent directly to the door of MS's.

It is essential we continue to speak out for the river and its wildlife until an appropriately funded plan of action is committed to by the Welsh Government. We need our elected decision makers to take a lead, but we also need water companies and anyone involved in the supply chain for agriculture to take a lead too.

Our  team are working hard to support grassroot organisations such as Friends of the Wye and Friends of the Lugg who monitor and protect our rivers. We employ a programme manager on behalf of Friends of the Wye, as well as providing Health and Safety and insurance coverage. We have seen an an incredible number of volunteers mobilised to take action for the River Wye and Lugg. By training volunteers to take water quality samples, people power really can make a difference!  

Friends of the Wye made some excellent contributions to the recent Environmental Audit Committee 'Water quality in rivers' report. Read the report here.

We supported River Action UK in raising over £25,000 for the Wye Valley Citizen Science Monitoring Project. Various groups, including Friends of the Wye and Friends of the Lugg, have created this project which aims to monitor and eliminate pollution in the River Wye and its tributary the River Lugg.

The Citizen Science Project ran out of funding needed to pay for the essential equipment used to collect samples and measure pollution levels. This data can be used by Government and the statutory agencies to release funding to tackle the problem. After the success of the Crowdfunder, we aim to fund some staff time to help the project with data and systems, so the information collected has maximum usage and impact.

We recently collaborated with Herefordshire Wildlife Trust on a River Wye Audit over Autumn 2022; collecting feedback from the public on what most concerns them about the state of the Wye and what action they would like to see next. Supporters sent in comments, blogs, and videos to help us keep the issues – and potential solutions – in the spotlight, as well inform our next steps in campaign planning. 

Over summer 2023, representatives from Radnorshire Wildlife Trust and Herefordshire Wildlife Trust attended the AGMs of supermarkets Tesco, Sainsburys and Marks and Spencer to ask them to get serious about cleaning up their supply chain and tackling river pollution. All three supermarkets have now been formally invited to a roundtable being held on 17^th July, chaired by The Wildlife Trusts CEO Craig Bennet. Tesco and M&S have now accepted this invitation. Read more here.

1. Introduce General Binding Rules (minimum standards) into the Agricultural (Wales) Act and fund a dedicated Natural Resources Wales enforcement and advice team to implement.

2. Issue a statement revoking Natural Resources Wales’ statement that Intensive Poultry Units are not linked to agricultural pollution in the River Wye in light of the clear evidence from Lancaster University that details the link.

3. Introduce the requirement for a full environmental permit for all Intensive Poultry Units (chicken and pig) within Special Area of Conservation rivers.

4. Issue a detailed and staged action plan to work with all parties, including UK Government and the Third Sector, across the Wye catchment (England and Wales) to action joint measures and mitigation to address all pollution on the river and set defined targets to reduce nutrient pollution with immediate and rapid effect.

5. Agree commitment from Welsh Government and Natural Resources Wales to actioning a water protection zone across the whole catchment.

We asked Minister Drakeford, Minister James, and Chief Executive Pillman to work together, to fund and resource an action plan to save the River Wye:

We asked to commit to the following actions, as guided by Radnorshire Wildlife Trust:

1. Introduce General Binding Rules (minimum standards) into the Agricultural (Wales) Act and fund a dedicated Natural Resources Wales enforcement and advice team to implement.

2. Issue a statement revoking Natural Resources Wales’ statement that Intensive Poultry Units are not linked to agricultural pollution in the River Wye in light of the clear evidence from Lancaster University that details the link.

3. Introduce the requirement for a full environmental permit for all Intensive Poultry Units (chicken and pig) within Special Area of Conservation rivers.

4. Issue a detailed and staged action plan to work with all parties, including UK Government and the Third Sector, across the Wye catchment (England and Wales) to action joint measures and mitigation to address all pollution on the river and set defined targets to reduce nutrient pollution with immediate and rapid effect.

5. Agree commitment from Welsh Government and Natural Resources Wales to actioning a water protection zone across the whole catchment.