Westcountry Rivers Trust

02/06/2026

Royal Cornwall Show 2026

Come and find us at Stand 286 in the Farming, Food and Nature Hub!
Chat with our Land Team and find out more about what WRT do.
Royal Cornwall Show

31/05/2026

Giles - Land Team:
One of my favourite bits of river - and a proper old haunt. 🌿

This stretch of the DeLank river was a fabulous place to explore growing up, full of wildlife and rugged, untamed habitat. Coming back to it now with a scientist's eye makes it even more special.

This part of the catchment represents some of the best temperate rainforest habitat in the region, and is designated as a SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest) for its extraordinary range of bryophytes - mosses and liverworts draped across every rock and branch.

What makes it particularly remarkable is that the river itself holds a separate SSSI designation for its rich and diverse aquatic plant assemblage - something genuinely unusual in an acidic moorland river, where most plants simply can't get a foothold.
Some places earn their significance. This one always had it. 🪨🌱

30/05/2026

Some nice river shots from monitoring officer Ian attempting to stay cool this week while out and about.

🌲➡️🌳At these sites we're measuring how a river reacts when surrounding coniferous forestry is returned to native broadleaf woodland. We expect pH and turbidity to change but we're also measuring temperature, depth, conductivity, Oxidation-reduction potential, and dissolved oxygen. This monitoring project is funded and supported by the TRUST.

29/05/2026

Two of our staff (Jay and Ada) have been completing their River Condition Assessment training. This 6 week course will provide the training required to complete Biodiversity Net Gain assessments for rivers. This tool is also useful for identifying riparian areas for improvement and testing scenarios for river restoration.

28/05/2026

On Saturday, the Lemon PPIP (Partnership Project to Improve Passage) team celebrated World Fish Migration Day in Newton Abbot at Bradley Manor Estate, along with partners Environment Agency and National Trust South West. Sheltering from the sun, we used this opportunity to share the plans for removing Bradley Manor weir to open up fish passage throughout the entire River Lemon catchment, following years of strategic improvements to fish passage within the wider Lemon catchment.

Thank you to all who came to talk to us, sharing their thoughts and support for the project.

27/05/2026

💙What fantastic news! Thank you so much to everyone at Bays Brewery for this incredible support! 🍻

£1,025 is an absolutely brilliant result and will make a real difference to our work protecting and restoring the rivers, streams and waterways that make the Westcountry so special. 🌊

It was a joy working alongside the Bays team on Up The Creek, a beer with a cause we can all raise a glass to! We loved the brewery visit and are so grateful to have such passionate local champions in our corner.

And of course, a huge thank you to every single person who bought a pint or a bottle, you are directly helping to protect the rivers and landscapes that we all love. 🙏

Here's to more great partnerships, great beer, and healthy rivers! 🍺💧

26/05/2026

🌱 We're proud to be part of ADOPT — a DEFRA-funded Farming Innovation Programme delivered by Innovate UK — and here's what we're actually trialling!

Working with farmer Andy Gray in Mid Devon (and neighbouring farmer and partners ADAS), on a farmer-led trial to see whether living mulches - like dwarf white clover grown beneath a maize crop - can make arable farming more sustainable without compromising on yield.

The idea is to keep soil covered and biologically active year-round, reduce the need for tillage, and cut environmental impact - all while producing quality forage maize.
The trial is comparing:

Direct drilling into living mulch
Strip-till into living mulch (disturbing only the seed row)
A traditional plough-and-power-harrow control

We'll be measuring soil health, forage quality, yield, and farm economics - to build evidence for systems that real farms can actually adopt at scale.
More updates to follow as the season progresses! 🌍

25/05/2026

💧 Are farmers ready to partner on nature-based water solutions? Our Water Net Gain project manager has written a guest blog for the Ofwat Water Innovation Fund - and it's a fascinating read.

Through a major national engagement programme, our team worked with four local Rivers Trusts to interview and survey farmers across England about whether they'd participate in a scheme to create water-storing ponds on their land - and what it would take to make it work for them.
Key things we learned:

Personal, on-farm conversations worked far better than emails or online surveys
Trusted local advisors were essential to getting honest responses
Recent policy changes have left many farmers sceptical - but open to the right partnership
Solutions must be adapted to local contexts - there's no one-size-fits-all approach

With 69% of UK land under agricultural management, getting this relationship right isn't optional - it's essential for the future of our rivers and water supply.
Read the full blog here 👇
https://waterinnovation.challenges.org/news-updates/come-rain-or-shine-nature-based-solutions-need-farmers-but-are-farmers-ready-to-partner/


The Rivers Trust Westcountry Rivers Trust Mersey Rivers Trust Essex and Suffolk Rivers Trust Trent Rivers Trust

This is a guest blog from the Water Net Gain project – which is studying the feasibility of a catchment-scale approach whereby farmers are paid to store water on their land – and the six transferable lessons it learned about collaborating effectively with farmers. Find out more about the project...

24/05/2026

✨ Naturally "Blinged" Cased Caddis ✨
Whilst out Riverfly surveying on the River Fowey catchment, we came across a variety of these naturally glittering cased caddis, and they really do sparkle!
Caddis larvae spin silk and gather materials from their surroundings to build protective tubes. When the streambed is rich in reflective minerals, the result looks positively jewelled, sparkling, armoured cases built entirely from the geology of the river itself.
In a granite catchment like the Fowey, that means:

Quartz - glassy, resilient grains that catch the light
Mica (biotite and muscovite) - thin, reflective flakes that add natural shimmer

Tiny underwater architects, crafting mineral armour from the ancient landscape around them. 🪨✨

Have you ever spotted cased caddis on your local river? Let us know below!

21/05/2026

🗺️ Our data team do occasionally make it out of the office...
A big thank you to Esri UK for hosting a really inspiring GIS conference in London last week! Lots of new mapping and spatial analysis ideas to bring back to our work on Westcountry rivers.

For those unfamiliar, GIS (Geographic Information System) is mapping and spatial analysis software - and at WRT it's used every single day across almost all of our project. We use it to identify where natural flood management features like leaky dams would have the most impact, to map where land-based measures can reduce surface water pollution, and to create maps that tell the story of our rivers to the people who care about them.

The annual Esri conference is a great chance to meet other GIS users, get inspired, and learn what's new - and this year didn't disappoint. 💙