There is no room for complacency…when it comes to defending our interests.
Angling is under attack from many sides and anglers need to push forward with making angling more high-profile; for too long we anglers have had to take a back seat and accept second best or even worse. At times I have thought that we have been sleepwalking our way into oblivion so perhaps it is worth reviewing the progress which has been made over the past couple of years, especially as there is now a unified representative body, the Angling Trust.
The Angling Trust has made significant progress but nevertheless there is still plenty of scope for improvement. There is no room for complacency. Even more will be achieved once the Trust has increased its finances and membership.
Without a doubt, for the first time in as long as I can remember, anglers are now being listened to. The Defra minister Richard Benyon is beginning to appreciate the social and environmental benefits of angling. The ‘Cormorant Watch’ website set up by the Trust has logged on it over 50,000 sightings. (But ten years too late and when cormorants are largely now being controlled anyway – and it doesn’t have the balls to put up an ‘otter watch’ website – Ed) It will be a major input when it comes to the evidence-based review of cormorant control this year. And Fish Legal scored a grand-slam success in 2011 when it secured an out of court settlement in compensation for pollution suffered by the Waltonian Angling Club on its water on the Derbyshire Derwent. This helps to put anglers where they belong on the map: as a force to be reckoned with.
Any club which now controls or rents water and has not joined the Trust and its legal arm Fish Legal needs to come to its senses quickly. Consider: if you suffered a pollution, then the only options would be to accept the situation or else find a legal representative with the specialised knowledge who was capable of taking the case on, assuming that one could be found. If so, he/she will certainly charge anything up to £200 per hour. The Derbyshire case went on for four years and involved Fish Legal in hundreds of hours of work. Annual membership of Angling Trust/Fish Legal to provide cover for a club of similar size costs £240. Do I make my point?
A serious concern of mine over the past couple of years has been the fact that, although it is comparatively easy for the Angling Trust to recruit angling clubs and organisations into its ranks, the real ‘tough nuts’ in recruiting terms, remains the individual angler. I’m afraid that, for most of those they are trying to recruit, overarching political issues, political lobbying and the rest are simply seen as things up there in the stratosphere they cannot possibly exercise any influence over nor have any input into; and even if they could, it would not help. Hence the all-too-familiar ‘anglers are always the losers and always will be’ mentality of many who fish.
My own view is that individual membership would begin to rise if the Angling Trust could involve itself in local issues affecting anglers which were reasonably winnable. Then these individual anglers, especially the unattached coarse fishermen, would begin to see the value of ATr membership and feel that they were able to support something worthwhile. This is an area where a relatively new organization like the Angling Trust simply must do better.
But there is a little light appearing over the horizon here and there; the Trust has now employed an additional Membership Officer, as opposed to just one individual trying to organize the whole recruitment effort, and also a Regional Coordinator, John Cheyne, who will be able to take the joining message to all four corners of the country and Martin Salter will make sure that anglers’ interests are kept in the face of those who matter.
One burning local issue – perhaps the biggest of its kind in the whole country – is the question of the Thames ‘supersewer’ the Angling Trust is already involved of course in the call for this, but in my view it needs to adopt a much higher profile: it should be taking the lead and reaping the benefit in terms of increased publicity. Given that the RSPB and many other conservation organisations have nailed their colours to the mast, anglers risk being lost in the crowd: also-rans who should have been front-runners, demonstrating through the media their commitment to environmental matters. The fact is that issues like this one can easily be hijacked by other interested parties. In short, this is one where the Angling Trust MUST take on a higher and more pro-active role. A useful rung on the ladder ought to be the positive outcome of the Angling Trust/Fish Legal challenge to the water industry to be transparent about sewage discharges and abstraction.
Another huge issue which the AT should be seen to be involving itself in with a more pro-active stance, locally and nationally, is that of abstraction and water use. I remember vividly the BBC 1 Programme in September 2011 (‘Are We Drinking Our Rivers Dry’). Much of this programme was based on the current dire state of the Kennet. The latter, being aquifer-fed, is an excellent indicator of the state of rivers generally; 10m cubic metres per day are abstracted by Thames Water from the Kennet alone.
An EA spokesman pointed out that the vast majority of abstraction licences were granted many years ago and so take no account of environmental factors. The EA had identified at least 600 instances where abstraction licences were a threat to river flows. Roughly 25% of our rivers are at risk. It was also demonstrated, at least as far as domestic users are concerned, that quite simple measures in a typical household will save up to 49% of water consumption. Metering, something which is still virtually unknown among domestic consumers, is in fact something which should have become standard many years ago. Several organisations had a say: the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust, Action for the River Kennet, etc. Anglers, whether as an organisation or as individuals, were never mentioned. Need I say more?!
Clearly there is plenty which the Angling Trust still needs to do to raise the profile of angling generally in the media. There are signs that this is starting to be done. But much, much more needs to be achieved. At the risk of repeating myself, there is no room for complacency.
And there is also one other thing which needs to be done, something which everything else which needs to improve ultimately depends on. If you are reading this and are still not an Angling Trust member, you need to join. If you are still not a member, then you are, I’m afraid, part of the problem. Raising the profile of angling and taking up local battles takes professional knowledge, time, dedication, research, the right contacts, and many other things, not forgetting of course – money. So join, and do it now, be part of the solution and lend your weight to the battle.
There really is no room for complacency.
