WRT Active projects & sponsorships

Work with primary schools across the Wear catchment, particularly those from deprived areas, with little access to the countryside or to rivers, providing river trips to offer children first-hand experience of rivers, as well as classroom sessions and project work. Pupils learn about the value of rivers, the wildlife they support and about the role they can play in protecting them. The cost of transport is a significant barrier.

£1000 will cover transport costs, facilities hire and WRT staff costs to prepare for and deliver one school trip from an urban area to Weardale.

Community volunteers monitor invertebrate population levels to a more advanced level of detail than Riverfly in schools. Riverfly is the first line of defense in identifying pollution incidents for further investigation by the regulator.

£250 will cover WRT staff and ancillary costs for one day to co- ordinate and communicate with community volunteers.

£125 will cover the cost of a set of riverfly monitoring equipment for issue to the school. £750 will cover the costs of running 1 Riverfly training day for volunteers.

WRT is co-ordinating the invasives management across the Durham Peninsula World Heritage Site and and areas immediately upstream to improve habitats and public access. This is an opportunity to sponsor support improvements to the existing World Heritage Site and to support the proposed extension to the opposite bank.

£1000 will cover WRT staff and ancillary costs to to co-ordinate and look after volunteers, provide PPE, application equipment and herbicide to treat 1 ha of land infested by Giant Hogweed, Japanese Knotweed and Himilayan Balsam.

Tree cover keeps rivers cool as the climate warms. If rivers become too warm fish populations can be severely affected. Riverside trees provide other benefits: habitat for birds and other wildlife, improved bank stability, interception of polluted surface/sub surface flows into the river, improving water quality, and reducing downstream flood risk. Aftercare maintenance funding is particularly difficult to fund.

£300 will cover the cost of 100 trees, biodegradable non plastic guards and stakes. A further £1000 will cover the costs of gaining permissions and working with volunteers to plant 1600 trees on 1 hectare of land. £250 will cover the annual

maintenance costs controlling weeds on 1 hectare of land.

Cockfield to the Wear at Bishop Auckland. Working with volunteers to improve the river channel structure and riverbed and remove plastics and other rubbish to benefit the whole food chain: flylife, fish, mammals and birds. Rivers are the source of 80%+ of plastics reaching the sea.

£600 will cover WRT staff and ancillary costs, including materials to prepare for and deliver a volunteer habitat day.

Collecting data on soil health and productivity resulting from a range of land management practices from 3 participant demonstration farms. Organisation of on farm events to communicate results to the wider farming audience to influence the adoption of commercially and environmentally sustainable land management practices.

Soils Management is the single biggest factor influencing carbon capture and storage, natural flood management, drought resilience water quality and wider biodiversity. Healthy soils with good structure, absorb and hold carbon and water at different rates depending upon land use and support a wide range of biodiversity. Rainfall rapidly runs off poorly managed compacted soils, taking valuable nutrients from the land into rivers causing pollution and rapidly rising water levels and downstream flooding. Soil management decisions are complex and are becoming subject to ever more extreme seasonal factors, making it difficult to identify direct cause and effect on a year on year basis.

£5000 per year will cover the costs of collecting farm data, including soil analysis costs, collation of data and reporting of results from 1 demonstrator farm including 1 on farm open invitation event. Contributions of £1000 would make a proportionate contribution.

WRT is working with a demonstrator farm to explore this business model with a view to rolling out insights to the wider farming audience and influencing practical management. Reduced livestock numbers will improve soil health by reducing compaction and allowing better vegetation cover, holding back water reducing flood risk, improving drought resilience and water quality. The direct marketing of environmentally beneficial high welfare, high quality meats directly to the public, rather than relying on commodity prices will support farm business incomes.

£5000 per year will cover the costs of collecting farm data, including soil analysis costs, collation of data and reporting of results from 1 demonstrator farm including 1 on farm open invitation event. Contributions of £1000 would make a proportionate contribution.

A full feasibility and design study has been completed. Removal of the pipe bridge and replacement with an alternative crossing would remove a barrier to fish migration by reconnecting their in stream habitat. Barriers to fish movement in effect fragment the river habitat, impacts on fishes life cycles, ie access to food and suitable spawning sites, directly affecting their ability to survive and to reproduce. Removal of the weir and construction of a replacement foot crossing would cost in the region of £75K. At a 25% success rate 4 applications would be required to successfully achieve 1*75K application.

An average of £2,500 per application or £10,000 for 4 applications will cover the cost of applications, including the ability to recycle/reuse information between applications depending upon individual funder criteria. Donations of any size could be ringfenced for construction and used for match funding to strengthen funding applications.