S
Stewart Moss
Guest
I arrived at a favourite swim on the Windrush to find it destroyed by the EA.
An enormous, ancient and beautiful old willow had been totally removed. This tree was a mini-ecosystem in its own right - providing a home to countless animals and insects. Barbel lived beneath its branches, ducklings used it as cover, pigeons roosted in its branches, water voles foraged in the debris beneath it etc.
No doubt it has been removed to "improve channel efficency". But is there no consultation process? The tree had been there for years and years, until some EA chap decides it should go, and out comes the chain saw.
The same thing left me distraught a few miles upstream when all the willows in a whole field were removed.
What is left is a near featureless, faster flowing channel, with little or no wildlife.
Distraught.
An enormous, ancient and beautiful old willow had been totally removed. This tree was a mini-ecosystem in its own right - providing a home to countless animals and insects. Barbel lived beneath its branches, ducklings used it as cover, pigeons roosted in its branches, water voles foraged in the debris beneath it etc.
No doubt it has been removed to "improve channel efficency". But is there no consultation process? The tree had been there for years and years, until some EA chap decides it should go, and out comes the chain saw.
The same thing left me distraught a few miles upstream when all the willows in a whole field were removed.
What is left is a near featureless, faster flowing channel, with little or no wildlife.
Distraught.