Our team have been very busy over the past few months delivering a number of river restoration projects!
One of these is the ‘Reconnecting the Salmon Rivers of Wales project’ led by Swansea University, with partners Afan Valley Angling Club, Afonydd Cymru, Welsh Water, The Wye and Usk Foundation and Cyfoeth Naturiol Cymru / Natural Resources Wales, funded by the Nature Networks Fund.
This project aims to remove 17 disused barriers to reconnect 141 km of fragmented river habitats across Wales in five iconic Atlantic salmon rivers: the Western and Eastern Cleddau, the Usk, the Tywi, and the Teifi. Reconnecting quality habitats will make these fish populations less isolated and make our rivers more resilient to future change.
We will be sharing photos from this and other projects on our social media over the coming days. To begin with, here is a simple culvert removal at a low-traffic crossing point. By removing this barrier, which had collapsed, regularly blocked up and caused a barrier in a variety of flows, free movement of this tributary and the fish within it has been restored.
Before:
After:
The Nature Networks Fund is funded by the Welsh Government and administered by The National Lottery Heritage Fund in Wales.
