Wildlife and flooding on the agenda

8 Oct 2007

Event: Severn and Wye River Catchment Conference

Date: October 9 & 10, 2007

Venue: Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust HQ, Robinswood Hill Country Park, Gloucester

Conservationists from across Wales and England are meeting to discuss ways of working together to improve the River Severn and the River Wye - both for wildlife and for the communities in the catchment areas.

Montgomeryshire Wildllife Trust has organised the conference, which is being attended by all the Wildlife Trusts which fall within the river catchments. Among the topics discussed will be ways in which careful conservation and partnership work might be able to find solutions to alleviate flooding – an increasingly worrying threat as climate change begins to have an impact.

Most of the Wildlife Trusts within the catchments have, or are in the process of planning, "landscape-scale" conservation projects – plans which involve vast areas of land and water. Modern thinking about conservation is that the past practice of protecting small areas (e.g. Sites of Special Scientific Interest – SSSIs) has done little to counter the rapid decline of biodiversity in the UK; quite simply, to survive and recover strength, species need to be able to move freely to surrounding areas offering suitable conditions.

More and more guardians of our natural heritage are starting to believe that a major part of the solution is to create "landscape-scale" areas to provide a sustainable home for our wildlife.

Partnership working – involving neighbouring Wildlife Trusts and other organisations taking a joint approach to conservation projects – is the key to success. Rivers like the Severn and Usk, which cut across several counties and affect many different communities, are perfect examples of vitally important areas which would benefit from a concerted approach.

"The aim of the conference is to share ideas, information, and knowledge, about individual projects," said event organiser Iestyn Thomas, the People and Wildlife Officer for Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust.

"We have a vision of many different projects coming together to form a single Wildlife Trusts "Living Landscapes" project - a project that takes a considered view of land and freshwater management from source to sea – from the mountains to the coast.

"The rivers Severn and Wye are nationally-important river networks which are of high conservation interest. But they, too, provide basic human needs and - from time to time - upset basic human needs, particularly through episodic flooding.

"The Wildlife Trusts have a huge opportunity to address conservation and wider environmental management issues, but also to consider the wider social end economic benefits that whole-catchment management could provide - especially flood alleviation through wetland creation."

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NOTE TO NEWSDESKS: For more information, please contact Iestyn Thomas on 07792 938910 or Liz Shankland on 07970 780558.

Iestyn Thomas will be available for interviews – by arrangement - in both Welsh and English.

CONFERENCE PROGRAMME

DAY ONE

10:00 – Arrival, tea & coffee.

10:30 - Introduction. John Everitt (The Wildlife Trusts’) Living Landscapes a

UK context.

10.50 - Presentations:

Individual Trust presentations in order of source to sea, starting with

the river Severn. Each Trust will present an outline of their project and

it’s current status.

13:00 – Lunch

14:00 – Continue project presentations.

15:30 – Afternoon break.

15:50 – Summary discussion

17:00 – Close.

DAY TWO

09:30 – River system ecology. Exploring an integrated approach to upper

catchment, mid-river flood plains, tidal reaches, and river mouth

management.

10:45 – Morning tea break

11:05 – How can the Trusts work in collaboration. Plenary group sessions.

13:00 – Lunch

14:00 – The next steps: A Living Landscape Action Plan.

15:30 – Afternoon break.

15:50 – Conference summary.

16:30 – Close and depart.

Wildlife Trusts attending

Brecknock

Gwent

Montgomeryshire

Radnorshire

South and West Wales

Shropshire

Herefordshire

Gloucestershire

Worcestershire

Avon