RIVERCIDE - George Monbiot’s live documentary on the state of the UK’s rivers was both chilling and devastating. In real-time viewers were taken to different sections of one of the UK’s most iconic rivers – the River Wye, where we heard multiple accounts on how the river’s ecosystem has been decimated by pollution…

“I wouldn’t swim this section anymore; it smells and tastes foul”

“We don’t see otters, we don’t see kingfishers, there’s no dragonflies anymore”

“The river stinks, it looks horrible. It’s just not well”.

Watch the documentary here.

The cause of this rivercide?

Phosphate levels have doubled in the past six years alone creating a wildlife death-trap. The primary cause of this is now widely accepted to be the nutrient-rich run-off of chicken excrement from intensive poultry units. The region is home to no fewer than 20 million chickens and their excrement, high in phosphate, is allowed to run freely into the Wye and its tributaries. Shockingly, the largest egg producer in the region, Noble Foods – owner of egg brand Happy Egg – entirely omits river pollution from its sustainability plan.

The situation is bleak and the overwhelming question viewers of Rivercide were left with was… Where are the regulators in all this?

With budgets cut by almost 2/3 over the past 10 years - Natural Resources Wales and the Environment Agency are simply unable to do their job. In fact, a farm in the UK will be inspected for pollution on average once every 263 years…

With no monitoring and enforcement, the nation’s biggest polluters go unpunished.  

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

• Please consider writing to your parliamentary representative to express your support and call on them to take action. You can find template letters here.
• Share the petition widely…

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Thank you!