Peter Powell

Our objective @WelshDeeTrust is: 'A river Dee free of pollution and full of wildlife'. As an organization we see our priority as making the tangible changes on the ground that benefit the river. Here's a 🧵 about what that looks like.

Supporters bbq tonight, there’s still time to sign up: welsh-dee-trust.teamkinetic.co.uk/volunteers/opp…

Once you think about how tyres actually work (abrasion for grip), where water runs off roads to (local streams with minimal treatment) and how many cars there are, you quickly realise how massive an issue microplastics from tyres is. independent.co.uk/news/science/p…

This week’s #WildWelshWednesday is as remarkable as it is adorable: 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿Bronwen y Dŵr 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿Dipper Translated as ‘white-breast of the water’, 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿Bronwen y Dŵr is a wonderfully descriptive name for this plump chocolate-brown riverine bird with white throat. 📷 Andy Rouse/2020VISION

A write up about our concerns for the Dee in proposals for the Cunliffe report. Cross border rivers are barely mentioned, but with two different regulators there is potential for real mismatch with how the river is managed.

Very good @NilsPratley column on the Cunliffe review theguardian.com/business/nils-…

Peter is right! What about the Wye, Arrow & Lugg? Repeatedly reported to have endless compounding problems and entire communities paralysed, yet always dodged when it comes to ‘answers’ Too difficult or too rural? What happens when the water company isn’t the cause?

Earlier this year we lost a large area of rented hay meadows at short notice, which gave us two choices 1) find more fodder or 2) sell the cows. We were lucky that the opportunity came up to buy a standing crop of clover nearby.

This is the Llynor. It's one of the cleanest tributaries on the Dee. No farmyards or sewage treatment works upstream. And it's mostly forest, a big section being restored to ancient woodland. But it has a major problem. A 🧵

Fencing off rivers from livestock works wonders for marginal plant growth This section of the River Chess was fenced off last year. The plant life has already transformed the channel. ⁦@ChilternsNL⁩ ⁦@ChilternSociety⁩

We avoid the nonsense over sheep, simply because we’ve worked with so many sheep farms that have good habitats on them Goes against the grain, I know, but how can you restore nature at scale by excluding one of the largest sectors We’re very proud of our sheep farming heritage

And they completely avoid the nonsense about sheep because it’s dumb and alienating in a great shepherding area They do awesome stuff I think environmentalism is doing stuff - any fool can talk to their own in-crowd

In fact they work with farmers not like us too, and that’s the secret to their success - they just get on with stuff and work with us all Won the European Rive Prize in 2022 (with partners) and gone from strength strength since then

So much good environmental stuff happening in the uplands. The areas known to me are probably going through the most radical nature restoration for centuries. Massive credit to partners like @UllswaterCic who work with farmers like us to get stuff done.