Water for Wildlife

The booklet ‘Managing Woody Debris in Rivers and Streams’ is for farmers, wetland landowners, site managers, anglers, foresters, local authorities and policy makers and aims to promote best practice in rivers and watercourse management by dispelling the myths and summarising the latest key thinking.

Its main advice is that woody debris, such as fallen trees, large branches, twigs and leaves, which has traditionally been seen as a ‘nuisance’ in watercourses and removed, is actually a vital component of rivers and streams particularly for wildlife. It has many benefits, but is crucial for instance, to migratory fish like salmon and sea trout because it provides a range of micro or ‘niche’ habitats for feeding, spawning and nursery sites. (Research in America has shown that pools created by logs and branches provide over 50 per cent of salmon breeding areas in small streams and its removal often precedes a decline in salmon populations.) It also helps stabilise the river bank and stores carbon, so can even mitigate the long term effects of climate change. Leaving it in the watercourse can therefore, provide benefits to both people and wildlife.

Nick Mott from the Staffordshire Wildlife Trust who helped produce the booklet says:

“Many rivers in the USA, Canada and Australia which were formerly cleared of wood, have been ‘re-snagged’ in recent years with trees and large branches to dramatic effect. The UK now needs to catch up with this thinking and improve its understanding and management of watercourses. A great deal of taxpayers’ money is spent removing woody debris unnecessarily. The over-riding principle, should be, that unless there is a very strong and well supported case for its removal or repositioning, woody debris should be left in. It forms the backbone of a healthy wetland eco-system and leaving it is actually a cost effective form of river rehabilitation.”

Alastair Driver, the Environment Agency’s National Conservation Manager is impressed with the publication:

“We have been aware that woody debris is a vital component of healthy river systems for some time now, but the value of leaving quantities of this material in streams and rivers, when we have historically cleared much of it out, is a difficult message to get across to landowners. Fortunately, nowadays we routinely apply a much more sensitive approach to watercourse management by attempting to balance the needs of reducing flood risk to property whilst maintaining and improving wildlife habitats. This attractive and informative leaflet provides a valuable insight into the benefits of this approach for the wide range of wildlife dependent on woody debris.”

Copies of booklet, partly funded by Biffaward which supports Water for Wildlife in the Midlands, can be downloaded free from The Wildlife Trusts website at www.wildlifetrusts.org