5050-TRT-Spring-Summer-Newsletter-WEB

Top 10 achievements...
Our work in the Tyne catchment is wide-ranging and ongoing.
Here’s a snapshot of what we’ve accomplished over the past decade
1
River Watch
• 412 River Watch events since 2007, attended by around 2,000 supporters
• Volunteer effort has contributed £67,860 in kind
• Trained 76 Riverfly invertebrate monitors for the Tyne catchment
and 87 for neighbouring catchments
Invasives
2
• Surveyed 135 km of river bank for
invasive non-native plants
• Organised 619 adults and 73 children to carry out
3
‘balsam bashes’; removing an estimated 400 million
Himalayan balsam seeds
• Trained 17 volunteers in pesticide application
and stem injection to tackle Japanese knotweed
Education
• Worked with 24 First, Middle and Secondary Schools on in-river activities
as well as course work and theory sessions.
• Enthused seven youth groups about topics from the mining heritage to
‘Keeping Rivers Cool’
• Supported 11 university students in dissertations and work experience
5
Tree planting
We have planted 5,920 trees
throughout the catchment,
creating 1.8 hectares of
new cover and stabilising
and shading 4.2 km of
riverbank.
4
Pollution
Reported 42 pollution incidents and worked with
the Environment Agency and land owners to
resolve 28 of these, to date
Forestry
• 126 km of walkover surveys in 17 river sub-catchments
• Logged 512 chemical measurements (pH, turbidity, conductivity and
temperature) and surveyed 13 invertebrate populations
• Working on 30+ issues of road drains entering watercourses and four silt-trap
ponds created
6
7
Fish
passage
TRT has built nine fish passes to
date and we are currently
working to tackle a further five
major obstructions to fish
migration. These have greatly
improved access for fish along
over 80 km of upstream
watercourse.
www.tyneriverstrust.org