PARADISE comes at a cost: you must defend it. This is my uppermost thought as I walk along the River Lea, outside the Hertfordshire village of Stanstead Abbotts, with Feargal Sharkey. Trout are rising, water voles are scuttling, a kingfisher is reported. The scene can’t look so different from when Izaak Walton walked to Amwell Hill in The Compleat Angler, but that’s only because this stretch of river is owned by the Amwell Magna Fishery, the UK’s oldest angling club. It pursued the Environment Agency (EA) to the doors of the High Court a couple of years ago to compel it to fulfil its legal obligation to protect water quality.
The fishery employs two men full time to ensure that the river remains this beautiful and biodiverse, laying tree trunks in front of banks to stop invasive signal crayfish burrowing into them. Yet even they cannot completely guard against the evils of algae, resulting from high phosphate levels and over-abstraction.
Environmental calamity is business as usual for England’s rivers, only 14% of which are considered of good ecological status under the Water Framework Directive. Every body of water fails the test for chemical pollution. In 2020, water companies discharged raw sewage into them some 400,000 times—hardly an encouragement for wild swimming. Mr Sharkey is, however, what economists call a disruptor; happy to be considered, as he was dubbed recently, a stroppy former punk rocker who won’t take no for an answer, he’s a one-man (but growing) campaign for action. Last month, he appeared before the Environment Audit Committee to speak passionately for England’s rivers.
ãã®èšäºã¯ Country Life UK ã® May 19, 2021 çã«æ²èŒãããŠããŸãã
7 æ¥éã® Magzter GOLD ç¡æãã©ã€ã¢ã«ãéå§ããŠãäœåãã®å³éžããããã¬ãã¢ã ã¹ããŒãªãŒã9,000 以äžã®éèªãæ°èã«ã¢ã¯ã»ã¹ããŠãã ããã
ãã§ã«è³Œèªè ã§ã ?  ãµã€ã³ã€ã³
ãã®èšäºã¯ Country Life UK ã® May 19, 2021 çã«æ²èŒãããŠããŸãã
7 æ¥éã® Magzter GOLD ç¡æãã©ã€ã¢ã«ãéå§ããŠãäœåãã®å³éžããããã¬ãã¢ã ã¹ããŒãªãŒã9,000 以äžã®éèªãæ°èã«ã¢ã¯ã»ã¹ããŠãã ããã
ãã§ã«è³Œèªè ã§ã? ãµã€ã³ã€ã³
Happiness in small things
Putting life into perspective and forces of nature in farming
Colour vision
In an eye-baffling arrangement of geometric shapes, a sinister-looking clown and a little girl, Test Card F is one of televisionâs most enduring images, says Rob Crossan
'Without fever there is no creation'
Three of the top 10 operas performed worldwide are by the emotionally volatile Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, who died a century ago. Henrietta Bredin explains how his colourful life influenced his melodramatic plot lines
The colour revolution
Toxic, dull or fast-fading pigments had long made it tricky for artists to paint verdant scenes, but the 19th century ushered in a viridescent explosion of waterlili
Bullace for you
The distinction between plums, damsons and bullaces is sweetly subtle, boiling down to flavour and aesthetics, but donât eat the stones, warns John Wright
Lights, camera, action!
Three remarkable country houses, two of which have links to the film industry, the other the setting for a top-class croquet tournament, are anything but ordinary
I was on fire for you, where did you go?
In Iceland, a land with no monks or monkeys, our correspondent attempts to master the art of fishing lightâ for Salmo salar, by stroking the creases and dimples of the Midfjardara river like the features of a loved one
Bravery bevond belief
A teenager on his gap year who saved a boy and his father from being savaged by a crocodile is one of a host of heroic acts celebrated in a book to mark the 250th anniversary of the Royal Humane Society, says its author Rupert Uloth
Let's get to the bottom of this
Discovering a well on your property can be viewed as a blessing or a curse, but all's well that ends well, says Deborah Nicholls-Lee, as she examines the benefits of a personal water supply
Sing on, sweet bird
An essential component of our emotional relationship with the landscape, the mellifluous song of a thrush shapes the very foundation of human happiness, notes Mark Cocker, as he takes a closer look at this diverse family of birds