Mike Blackmore of the Wessex Rivers Trust, spoke to a capacity audience in Crosfield Hall on 20th November. He held the audience's raptured attention as he explained how many of our chalk streams were destroyed by drainage, selling the river bed gravel and general "tidying" of the landscape. What remains is a patchwork of isolated chalk stream habitat.
He explained how good, natural chalk stream ecosystems can help clean pollution and promote biodiversity. Meandering helps scour the riverbed, creating good spawning sites for salmon (a species unique to English chalk streams) and trout and creating appropriate silt and woody decay areas for helpful, cleansing bacteria. He also demonstrated the catastrophic impact of weirs and vegetation reduction.
Finally, on a positive note, he outlined the work he is undertaking with the cooperation of land owners, the Wessex Rivers Trust and other stake holders to restore stretches of the River Test to a healthy system, better able to cope with the ravages of climate change and flooding.
Watch out for a more detailed article in the next Society Magazine.
More information here:
https://www.wessexrt.org.uk/up...
