This thread has brought into focus a number of things. There are well-informed anglers here with sincere takes on the state of our rivers and concerns for their futures. But while we may might agree on a laundry list of damaging factors, there's no consensus about priorities in seeking to oppose the causes of damage to rivers and fish stocks, or about methods to pursue changes that might improve things.
If you don't have a particular standpoint, and you just have a general sense of concern that the rivers you know all seem “wrong” in one way or another – one top-heavy with big old fish of one species, but lacking another common species altogether; another, once prolific, seemingly barren for miles save for game fish; another still too polluted to support decent stocks of anything - it's very hard to know what to do, given that moaning or attacking differently-minded anglers won't help.
I get concerned to find predators, including “new” ones increasing, but I can see why trying to go in hard against otters is a hard sell and maybe the wrong end of the stick.. I followed up The Crow's posts by reading about the progress towards EU WFD standards, and I was shocked to see how dismal it has been, but I've no idea what to do about that. I'd like to believe a coalition of environmentally-minded groups will emerge and cheerlead a public demand for better water industry management and river protection, but I'm far from confident about that and I'm not clear how our concerns and actions could feed into it.
In short, I feel concerned and frustrated, but helpless. And a bit less well-informed about the whole scene than I should be.
I don't imagine any one petition, campaign, prosecution or action of any sort is the answer. If anything will help, I imagine a kind of groundswell of information and opinion that makes itself known to the public, the government and its agencies, and makes it harder to ignore concerns and keep the issues affecting river quality quietly off the agenda.
Is it worth dedicating a thread on FM to a kind of Save Our Rivers (Call it what you like) theme? Would it be useful if members, some of whom are clearly well-versed in angling and environmental politics, could post links to useful docs, news on related issues, material from groups with compatible aims, updates on any positive developments, contacts for people and organisations, advice on how to lobby influential people or organisations, templates for letters of complaint and concern.....etc etc A kind of campaigning archive and toolkit. Members could decide for themselves if they are interested and what they are prepared to support, and it might prompt something beyond falling out with each other.
It's not what I'm mostly interested in – I'm happy, as most probably are, just to fish – but I'm looking at a roomful of tackle here, all of it pretty useless unless I've got access to good fishing.
I'm not going to be at all offended if it's regarded as a bad idea.