The Lifeboat News
[ Message Archive | The Lifeboat News ]

    The rape and pillage of our green and pleasant land 📂 Archived Message

    Posted by sashimi on December 10, 2020, 7:35 am

    Peter Frost, 9 December 2020

    (quote)
    As part of the Morning Star's campaign to save our rivers an indignant
    Peter Frost reports from a river bank in Herefordshire designated a
    Site of Special Scientific Interest and a Special Area of Conservation

    Within days of the Tory government's announcement that it will replace
    the set-aside huge payment to already rich farmers and landowners with
    even more money, supposedly to re-wild our countryside, at least one
    landowner has shown his total contempt for any kind of wildlife and
    landscape protection.

    A huge section, well over a mile, of the beautiful Herefordshire River
    Lugg has been bulldozed. In a matter of hours this act of extreme and
    criminal vandalism has changed the Lugg from a beautiful river
    meandering through flowery water meadows into a straightened and
    re-profiled hard-edged sterile canal.

    Ancient bank side trees have been grubbed out and burnt. Many
    riverside habitats completely obliterated. In just a few hours the
    bulldozer swept away part of a mature landscape that had taken many
    centuries to develop.

    With it went habitats that had supported common and rare species that
    had made the Lugg their home. They included reed banks, gravels and
    beds of water crowfoot that were home to crayfish, otters and salmon,
    lampreys and dragonflies and a host of other rare river plants and
    animals.

    How the government reacts to this criminal act will be a test case for
    Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Environment Secretary, former
    Ukip member George Eustice. Will they strengthen wildlife protection
    or continue to support their rich landowning mates as the rape and
    pillage of our green and pleasant land goes on?

    The stripping and straightening on the River Lugg has not just
    destroyed stretch of approximately 1.5km of the river but downstream
    of the actual vandalism one of the most beautiful and important rivers
    in the UK has been intentionally ruined with a massive deterioration
    in water quality.

    The river Lugg is such an important home for wildlife that it is
    designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), and as a
    Special Area of Conservation (SAC).

    Its banks and flood meadows are home to some of Britain's most
    beautiful and most threatened wild plants including narrow-leaved
    water dropwort. Here you will also find some of the biggest stands of
    snake's head fritillaries (Fritillaria meleagris) whose nodding,
    pink-and-purple-chequered flowers draw me and many other visitors in
    spring.

    I need to declare an interest here. The snake's head fritillary is my
    favourite wildflower. I grow the bulbs in my garden and above my desk
    hangs Rennie Mackintosh's pencil and watercolour sketch of these
    fascinating and delicate fritillary blooms.

    These Lugg meadows, as they are known locally, are unique. They date
    back to the time before the Domesday Book. Lugg Meadow is one of the
    most important surviving Lammas Meadows - a meadows in common
    ownership opened for communal grazing on Lammas Day, August 1.

    Today they are home to over a score of grass species and some rare and
    threatened ground-nesting birds, notably the curlew.

    The Lugg, one of more than 350 British rivers, flows from its source
    in Powys, Wales through Herefordshire before meeting the River Wye
    just outside Hereford.

    Statutory agencies such as Natural England, the Environment Agency,
    Forestry Commission and Herefordshire Council all had a statutory duty
    to protect the River Lugg from harm. However Tory funding cuts to all
    of those bodies has made it more and more difficult to make serious
    environmental protection a reality.

    The illegal dredging and straightening will speed the flow and have a
    drastic effect on water quality. With no stabilising vegetation, any
    heavy rainfall and rise in river level and speed will mean massive
    erosion of the banks with a great amount of soil washed into the river
    along with agricultural pollutants such as phosphates and
    pesticides. This soil smothers the riverbed for miles, destroying fish
    spawn, invertebrates and their eggs.

    The 45-mile River Lugg has its source near Llangynllo in Radnorshire,
    Wales where it is known as the Afon Llugwy. Its name in Welsh means
    bright stream.

    It flows through the border town of Presteigne and then through
    Herefordshire to the south of Leominster, where it meets a tributary,
    the River Arrow. Nine miles further on at Mordiford it feeds into the
    River Wye.

    Despite attempts at building locks the Lugg was never a satisfactory
    commercial waterway. Navigation probably ceased in the early 19th
    century. Early industry extracted water and mills used the ample flow
    for power.

    It is still sometimes navigated by small boats but can be very
    dangerous when in flood. Today the river is popular with both
    canoeists and anglers.

    As soon as the presence of the bulldozer was reported police and
    Environment Agency staff moved in to stop further damage being done.

    One early witness on the scene was Guy Linley-Adams, a lawyer for the
    charity Salmon and Trout Conservation, who lives nearby. He
    immediately called for prosecution of those responsible: "This is one
    of the most egregious acts of ecological vandalism that I have seen in
    25 years of working on rivers in the UK," he said. "I have been on
    site and I am shaking with anger at what has been done to my local
    river.

    "There can be no excuse if the perpetrator is not now prosecuted to
    the fullest extent possible. His financial assets should also be taken
    to pay to restore the river, a restoration that will take decades."

    Dave Throup, the area environment manager for the Environment Agency
    (EA), said: "We are treating this very seriously along with Natural
    England and the Forestry Commission, who have taken immediate action
    in an attempt to prevent any further works at the site."

    Throup tweeted: "14 specialist officers from the Environment Agency,
    Natural England, Forestry Commission, West Mercia police and
    Herefordshire council now on site gathering information and evidence."

    Helen Stace, the chief executive of the Herefordshire Wildlife Trust,
    said: "A large stretch of one of the UK's most important rivers, the
    Lugg, has been devastated with dire consequences for wildlife and
    water quality downstream. This is a tragedy.

    "This is a crime against the environment. Swift action needs to be
    taken and we want to see the authorities investigate the matter
    swiftly. We expect this case to be dealt with in a serious and robust
    manner and any resulting prosecution should act as a deterrent to
    prevent anyone committing this type of crime ever again. We will also
    be calling for restoration of the river to its natural channel."

    TV gardener Monty Don, who lives in near Leominster, told local
    newspaper the Hereford Times: "It breaks my heart but is all too
    typical of the ignorance, arrogance and sheer wanton destruction of
    those privileged to care for our countryside."

    Herefordshire Wildlife Trust told the Morning Star: "This assault on
    the river was not the work of an idle whim, requiring as it did the
    action of a 16-tonne bulldozer.

    "The work would have been planned and will have had a considerable
    cost attached. The landowners bordering this stretch of the river
    would have been well aware of the SSSI status of the river.

    "This was a deliberate flouting of laws designed to protect our most
    precious wildlife. The vandalism was a contravention of the Wildlife
    and Countryside Act and other legislation. It should have required
    consent from the Environment Agency, as well as planning consent, at
    the very least."

    Chief executive of The Wildlife Trusts, Craig Bennett, told the Star:
    "The government has promised to transform our environmental governance
    as we leave the EU and for the UK to be a world leader in
    environmental protection.

    "Devastating incidents such as this one will be a vital test case as
    we come to the end of the transition period for the government's
    ambition to develop a world leading environment enforcement structure.

    "Unfortunately, the government has so far failed to live up to this
    standard, with poor resourcing leaving Natural England unable to
    properly monitor and protect our most important wild places.

    Herefordshire Wildlife Trust has urged that the landowner responsible
    be prosecuted. Police have already started enquiries - they must end
    in serious penalties for those landowning vandals responsible.


    Why our British rivers are so important

    Britain's rivers are one of our most important landscape features. Not
    only do they help make the British countryside so picturesque and
    vibrant, they also provide fresh water for drinking and farming.

    Larger waterways have provided transport routes and power generation
    for riverside industry and business over centuries.

    Some of our most beautiful rivers are chalk streams. Their pure,
    clear, constant water from underground chalk aquifers and springs,
    flowing across flinty gravel beds, make them perfect sources of clean
    water - and ideal for lots of wild creatures to breed and
    thrive. We're lucky because the majority of the world's chalk streams
    are found in England.

    Today far too many of our waterways have been overused and
    undervalued. Drained almost dry in places, and polluted in others.
    Here are some of the main threats to our rivers:-
    ■ Straightening and canalising rivers disrupts the migration routes
    for fish and disrupts habitats.
    ■ Excessive water extraction for human or agricultural use shrinks and
    degrades habitats.
    ■ Runoff from agricultural and urban areas poisons water quality.
    ■ Draining of riverside wetlands floodplains and water meadows for
    housing and other development depletes wildlife habitats.
    ■ Overexploitation and pollution threaten groundwater supplies.
    ■ Invasion of exotic species can harm native animals and plants.
    ■ Climate change is leading to devastating floods and droughts.

    Less than a fifth of England's rivers are healthy, and increasing
    climate change is putting more and more pressure on them. That's why
    all our rivers, not just the Lugg, need our help and strict protection
    from the government and the law.
    (/quote)
    -- https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/f/the-rape-and-pillage-of-our-green-and-pleasant-land

    Message Thread:


    « Index