http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=12989
05 November 2002 09:23 BDT
Half of Europe's freshwater habitats
'ruined'
By Oliver Tickell
23 October 1999
Half of Europe's freshwater wildlife habitat has been
destroyed over the last 50 years, according to a new
report by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).
The United Kingdom is no exception, with most of
its rivers and streams severely degraded and no longer
able to support significant wildlife.
Only 15 per cent of the UK's 150,000 miles of freshwater
channels remain in a "natural condition", according
to
WWF's Living Rivers report, with the remainder dredged
and culverted into drainage ditches, straightened and
canalised for navigation, or constrained by hard, lifeless
banks.
Only one acre in 40 of the flood-plain wetlands that once
spread over our river valleys has survived centuries of
drainage for intensive farming and urban development.
One in three UK rivers is colonised by alien plants,
and pollution is widespread, from sewage works and factories
and poor agricultural practice.
The legal protection given to surviving wildlife-rich
fresh water is completely inadequate, the WWF says.
For example, the river Usk in Wales, with its otters,
salmon, brook lampreys and trout, has the highest level
of protection as a site of special scientific interest.
Yet a 28-acre greenfield site on its banks is likely
to be developed by the Welsh Rugby Union as a centre
of sports excellence - with roads, training halls,
floodlit pitches, and parking for 500 cars.
In other European countries, yet more destructive
developments are planned or under way. The Greek
government is rerouting the entire river Acheloos
in defiance of EU environment law. Construction works
will cause irreversible damage to otter and trout
populations and the dessication of the Messolongi
wetlands.
Giant engineering projects such as these have already
had a catastrophic effect across the EU. Damming has
blocked the passage of migratory fish such as salmon
and sturgeon, while dredging and siltation has deprived
them of their spawning gravels. Of Europe's 33 species
of migratory fish, 11 are globally endangered, six are
vulnerable and three are rare. Juvenile recruits of
Atlantic salmon have collapsed from 600,000 in the
early Seventies to 100,000.
Yet all is far from lost. The WWF report applauds the
efforts being made across Europe to restore rivers and
return their original wildlife. In Germany, 50,000 acres
of the Rhine's flood plains are being rehabilitated,
while a band of protected areas is planned for the Elbe.
The Danube is slowly coming back to life. In Hungary,
moves are afoot to restore the Gemenc Forest and allow
the river to flood into its many oxbow lakes and
backwaters, preparing the way for the reintroduction
of the beaver.
In Britain, Scottish Natural Heritage is preparing to
reintroduce the beaver, extinct in the country for
500 years. The Environment Agency in England and Wales
also has a number of projects to restore rivers
- although the funds available are under 1 per cent
of that spent on land drainage and flood control.
Now the WWF is urging the Government to push for the
strongest possible Water Framework Directive, under
negotiation at the EU, to ensure protection of wetlands
and freshwater habitats.
