Most weekends I go for a run along the River Cam, west to Granchester or east to Baits Bite Lock. Perhaps best known for rowing and punting, for me it provides a little therapy before the week ahead and is also a haven for wildlife. As the mind wanders, I'll always see mallards, swans and moorhens. In summer, I am accompanied by the songs of various warblers and the sight of common terns fishing. If I am lucky, and my timing is right, I might even bump into a delicate swarm of mayflies.
It is because river wildlife is so special, that we are keen, as part of the Our Rivers campaign, to encourage people to tell us about the wildlife of their local rivers. We've joined forcess with WWF-UK and the Angling Trust to launch a public survey to collect information about the wildlife people in England and Wales encounter on their local river.
We want to hear which species people have seen in their area, but we are also asking what has changed and been lost.
As well as encouraging people to enjoy their local river wildlife there is also serious, and worrying, message behind this. Much of our native river wildlife is threatened by rural and urban pollution, over abstraction, sewage discharges and invasive species. An official Environment Agency report says nearly three quarters of rivers in England and Wales are failing European environmental targets.
For example, the drought helped focus minds on our old and creaking abstraction licensing system; 80% of licenses (granted primarily to power stations and water companies) for taking water from groundwater, rivers and ditch systems are effectively permanent with no time limits and very limited options to impose environmental conditions. In the run up the the Water White Paper expected in the autumn, we want the UK Government to set out a clear timetable to restore the flow of our rivers and end unsustainable levels of abstraction, with action in the 2015-2020 water company investment period.
Please do fill in the survey. We will publish the results for all rivers, including the Cam, later in the summer.