Natural capitals: how Paris made the Seine swimmable for ‘the most eco-friendly Olympic Games in history‘ (but see also the Rivers Trust’s assessment of Olympic athletes in urban rivers, including comparisons with Denmark’s record on cleaning up their waterways) … and here’s our throwback to the London 2012 opening ceremony! ‘I swear by the River […]
Archive for the tag 'Volunteers'
May 24 2024
Film night: Trout and tribulations
Complete with footage from this week’s River Festival and Summit at Morden Hall on the Wandle, this new video from the one and only Amie Battams is firmly tongue-in-cheek as we’ve come to expect… … but it also carries an incredibly important message about all our rivers for everyone who’s looking after them (or should […]
August 12 2023
INNS Mapper: A new app for tackling invasive species in England, Wales and Scotland
As most experienced river restorationists know all too well, effectively tackling invasive non-native species (INNS) means knowing exactly where they are in the first place… … and that’s why we’re so stoked to see the new INNS Mapper app now available to download from Google Play and the Apple Store. For several years since the […]
July 14 2023
Film night: Reviving the River Irk with Mike Duddy
Our urban warrior brother-in-arms Mike Duddy has just announced his well-earned retirement from Mersey Rivers Trust, after 13 years which saw him progress from volunteering with its predecessor Mersey Basin Rivers Trust (and heading up Salford Friendly Anglers) to full-time employment with the Trust in several senior roles. To celebrate Mike’s time with MRT, we’re […]
September 8 2022
Bristol calling: The Fishtolian podcasts
From early September 2022 onwards, Pete Tyjas’s famous Fly Culture podcast has been hosting a series of takeovers by The Fishtolian: a mission by Pete Coleman-Smith and Jon Ogborne to find wild brown trout in Bristol, inspired by the Trout in the Trym project. From the series intro: Bristol would never be the first place […]
July 4 2022
Urbantrout sidecasts: Monday 4 July
Citizen science is making a comeback… … and it’s boosting a British river revival (with this 20-year milestone for the Wandle too!) Weir today, gone tomorrow: demolition work starts on the River Kent’s Bowston paper mill weir Tackling plastic pollution with beach cleans in Cornwall, with lots of resonance for urban river restorationists including mental […]
May 19 2022
Fins and Finns: Rewilding Oulujoki and other Nordic rivers
One of the wider Urbantrout team has recently been spending time in the Finnish city of Oulu, and simultaneously we’ve noticed a certain uptick in news from Finland’s urban and otherwise post-industrial rivers (of course, correlation still doesn’t amount to causation, no matter how influential we like to think our various team members really are…) […]
April 30 2022
10 years of Urbantrout and Trout in Dirty Places
This month, it’s 10 years since Trout in Dirty Places launched on a (mostly) unsuspecting world. Merlin Unwin Books and Granger’s fly shop threw us one hell of a party, and for a few days, the weird idea of fishing in urban rivers was making headlines across the media, including the Independent, Radio New Zealand, […]
August 5 2021
Pic of the day: Riverfly monitoring with a TWIST
Thanks to lots of enthusiasm from local volunteers, Somerset’s urban rivers now have a new cohort of qualified riverfly monitors to look after them. Click through to this report on the Wild Trout Trust website to find out more, and how to get involved in the exciting new TWIST (Transforming Waterways In Somerset Towns) project…
July 25 2020
Talking urban rivers on Farlows LIVE
Volunteer activities on urban rivers have certainly seen some setbacks during the Covid-19 pandemic, but forward-thinking organisations of all kinds have taken the opportunity to stay in touch with their supporters online… … and that’s just what Farlows have done with their series of Farlows LIVE interviews on Facebook. On Friday 17 July, this site’s […]
