Stamford River Day - Sunday 11th July! - 25/6/2010

Stamford RiverCare Group will be holding this year’s ‘River Day’ on Sunday July 11th, from 11.00am – 3.00pm on Stamford Meadows.

The day will be filled with fun activities for all the family including river-dipping, face painting, willow weaving and a nature trail. Food and drink will be available for purchase and music will also accompany the day’s activities. An Anglian Water and RiverCare stand will also be on site.

For anyone living locally, the event provides a chance to meet people in your local community, appreciate your local environment and have a lot of fun! If all of that is not to your liking, you can simply enjoy relaxing on Stamford meadows.

For further details please CLICK HERE

RiverCare retains Big Tick status! - 15/6/2010

We are proud to announce that RiverCare has retained its Big Tick status in the 2010 ‘Awards for Excellence’ given by Business in the Community (BITC).

BITC is one of Prince Charles’s charities and their Awards for Excellence identify and celebrate companies having a positive impact on the community, environment, marketplace and workplace.

RiverCare first achieved the Big Tick last year (in the ‘Active Communities’ category) and the team have been able to demonstrate that RiverCare continues to be a fantastic project that has a significant positive impact on the environment, the communities that it engages with and Anglian Water staff that volunteer for the project.

BiTC recognised the following benefits delivered by RiverCare:

- Enhanced community cohesion: RiverCare engages a wide cross-section of local people, including socially excluded groups

- Environmental enhancement: during 2009 a total of over 15,000 volunteer hours were contributed by RiverCare volunteers, who collected nearly 9,000 bags worth of litter and over 3,000 fly-tipped items

- Anglian Water Staff satisfaction: RiverCare has provided a rewarding means of developing employees’ skills through volunteering and they feel a greater sense of pride in working for Anglian Water

The award is a real credit to everyone who volunteers for the project and all of the partners that we work with.

For further information, please visit www.bitc.org.uk.

Help monitor and protect our lakes and ponds! - 10/6/2010

Open Air Laboratories (OPAL) are appealing for people to take part in their new water survey that aims to gather more data on the water quality of lakes and ponds.

Tests that you can carry out on your local lake or pond include simple water clarity and ph tests. Further details and a survey pack can be found by CLICKING HERE

Good water quality is essential for the many animals and plants that live in and around our lakes, ponds and rivers. Animals living in the water can tell us a great deal about how polluted the water may be. Some species struggle to survive in polluted waters, while others are more tolerant.

By submitting the results of your survey online to OPAL you will contribute to valuable scientific research about the water quality of our lakes and ponds – something there is surprisingly little data on.

Congratulations River Mel Restoration Group!! - 23/10/2009

The River Mel Restoration Group (RMRG) has won the national ‘Wild Trout Trust & Orvis Conservation Award 2009’! The RMRG joined RiverCare last year to add litter-picking to its existing range of conservation tasks.

Judges praised the group for enhancing the river Mel as a fish habitat by installing ‘soft’ revetments along half a kilometer of river, and for engaging local College Students with the project.

For further information on the RMRG visit: www.rivermel.com

RiverCare joins forces with the Norfolk Non-native Species Initiative - 17/12/2008

Invasive alien species represent one of the most serious threats to our native wildlife, with rivers and their surrounding areas being particularly at risk. Invasive aquatic plants can clog waterways; out-compete native species; and increase the risk of flooding. One such species, floating pennywort, is currently the focus of a major eradication project along the River Waveney. Other plants, such as Himalayan balsam, grow along the banks of rivers. Himalayan balsam forms stands so dense that native vegetation is shaded out. The plant then dies back in the winter, leaving the banks bare and vulnerable to erosion. Invasive animals are also having significant impacts. The North American signal crayfish is pushing vulnerable populations of the native white-clawed crayfish to the brink of extinction.

To help address the threats posed by invasive plants and animals, the Norfolk Biodiversity Partnership launched a major new initiative in September 2008. The Norfolk Non-native Species Initiative aims to promote the prevention, control and eradication of invasive non-native species in the county.

The Initiative has invited RiverCare to help record the occurrence of six high priority species in Norfolk:

Australian Swamp Stonecrop (Crassula helmsii)
Floating pennywort (Hydrocotyle ranunculoides)
Giant hogweed (Heracleum mantegazzianum)
Himalayan balsam (Impatiens glandulifera)
Japanese knotweed (Fallopia japonica)
Parrot’s feather (Myriophyllum aquaticum)

Information on the distribution of these species will be used to draft a detailed status report on the distribution and impacts of these species in Norfolk and lead to a 3-5 year action plan outlining the most suitable management approach.

Detailed identification guides for four of these species are currently available from the following web addresses. More will follow.

Japanese Knotweed CLICK HERE
Himalayan Balsam CLICK HERE
Giant Hogweed CLICK HERE
Parrots Feather CLICK HERE

If you are out along a watercourse in Norfolk and see any of the priority species then please note down the location details (including an OS grid reference - if possible) and contact a member of RiverCare staff.

RiverCare groups are already taking practical action on the ground, clearing invasive weeds from priority areas and safeguarding native habitats in the process. Norfolk-based RiverCare groups are also invited to take part in a county-wide ‘Day of Action’ on 5th July 2009. This day aims to bring together voluntary groups across Norfolk to take action against invasive species; we hope the day will lead to valuable habitat improvements and raise the profile of this important issue within the local community.

For more information on the Norfolk Non-native Species Initiative, and how you can help halt the spread of these species, please CLICK HERE

Norfolk Wildlife Trust are also appealing for people in Norfolk to take part in a survey of 5 non-native species (American mink, Giant hogweed, Himalayan balsam, Japanese knotweed and Muntjac deer).

For further details please CLICK HERE

Alien invaders in the UK - 15/10/2008

The BBC is running an excellent series of features and reports on non-native species that are threatening the ecology of the UK - including some of the species that RiverCare groups come accross such as Himalayan Balsam, Japanese Knotweed and Signal Crayfish.

An alien invasive species is a plant, animal or microorganism that is not native to an area, but has been introduced, either accidentally or deliberately, by humans.

For the BBC features CLICK HERE

A number of RiverCare groups remove Himalayan Balsam from their 'adopted' stretches of river. Our Fakenham group is monitoring and recording the presence of Japanese Knotweed along their stretch.

If you are interested in finding out how you could help with the control of non-native species along your river then please contact us.

Sheringham Loke Group make an exicting discovery! - 2/10/2008

The Sheringham Loke Group made an exciting botanical discovery during a recent clean-up.

At the new "Dew Pond" (a temporal pond re-excavated last year after being filled in over the decades) a member of the group who is a botanist, found a small but significant colony of Mudwort around the fringes of the pond.

Mudwort is a species that was last reported in Norfolk in 1914 - so this was a pretty exceptional discovery! It is an annual plant which is now nationally rare in the UK.

Twice-monthly Litter Clean-ups - Cuckoo's Hollow, Peterborough

The Friends of Cuckoo's Hollow in Peterborough carry out litter clean-up events on the second and the last Sunday of every month.

If you are interested in volunteering at one of these litter picks, please email foch@werrington.org.uk for further details.