Working with Partners
May 18, 2010
I’m sorry that my Monday blog is now becoming Tuesday or Wednesday but it’s a bit hec-tic around here. I’m hoping thought that the appointment of a volunteer catchment GIS officer will take some pressure off. For those not in the know, GIS is Geographical Information System. It is very much the “in” thing in Conservation these days. Some will ask how useful it is, but I can promise you it’s essential, for planning, funding and prioritising projects. The new body is Charlie Poates, and is here for 3 – 5 months. He is particularly looking at mapping out the locations of barriers, their impacts, what we need to do to them, and how much it’s going to cost. This will help us to prioritise where to target work and have a folder with all the details for a project bid ready to go.
But back to last week! Monday I was out with Burnley college students, looking at invertebrate monitoring and how to do walk over surveys. We hope to then utilise the students to add to our knowledge of the catchment, which Charlie can then put on our “problems” map! In the afternoon our Passport scheme booklets finally arrived so I dropped them into Vareys in Clitheroe, and sent out copies to those who had bought vouchers. I hope to see some results from peoples fishing in the very near future, although I suspect we need some rain first!
Tuesday I met Mark Rudd to look at our new proposal for easing passage at Hodder place gauging weir, we had a good morning and have got a new plan that we are costing up as we speak! In the afternoon I checked on the progress of the Weir removal near Rimmington and needless to say Baileys were nearly done. I then headed to Horton-in-Ribblesdale to talk with Ian Fleming the River keeper for Manchester Anglers Association and Kyle Young from the EA about a research program we’re doing up there this year, looking at why Gayle and Cam beck are failing good ecological status. We have a good idea, but need some evidence to back it up for when we apply for project funding.
Wednesday Janet Lord came in to go over our new Data base for storing all our fisheries data. If you’ve seen my report you’ll know we hold a lot of data that takes us an age to input, and on top of that is not stored in a user friendly way. With the knew data base this should all change. It will also hopefully be available to other rivers trusts to make use of if they please.
Thursday we met with Sopiha from the “vinspired” program, which is a scheme designed to allow young volunteers to get involved in various work experience through volunteering. Hopefully this will bolster our numbers of tree planters, and invertebrate samplers! In the afternoon it was contract writing for Barrowford 3. One of our trustees Dom came in to give his expertise which was most welcome as I felt a little overwhelmed!
Friday I visited our project site on Swanside to see how the fish easement works were going, and again Bailey’s were nearly finished! It looked good and only requires a small amount of work now to finish off. In the afternoon I was down at The Barn in Bamber Bridge for a workshop on Water Bodies and Watercourses, hosted by the Wildlife trust. There were representatives from many different conservation organisations, and the main thrust was to find out what organisations where doing where for Biodiversity action plan species (BAP species). The amazing thing for all attendees was how much the rivers trust movement was doing. I took a long list of not only what we were doing, but what the rivers trusts in the Northwest as a whole were doing. Many good contacts were made, and the BAP species process now might start to help the rivers trusts to continue there work, but also vice versa we may be able to help many of our partners to deliver theirs. And this is what it’s all about, working together for the greater cause not working off on our own ignoring what others are doing, especially when it may be the same thing or complimentary to our work.
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