The River Monnow Project 2003 to 2006
The aim of the project was to improve the capacity of the river to support wild trout, grayling and other wildlife.
In essence, the impact of both over-shading and stock access, is to remove the very features of the rivers and banksides which are so important for fish and a wide range of other wildlife species.
Above all, fish require abundant, grassy bankside cover. Grasses and other plants overhanging the water edge, provide important cover for juvenile fish and encourage insects, which are important as food.
Generally, banks clad with tough perennial plants are resistant to erosion, and reduce silt entering the river by effectively narrowing the width of the channel, which causes water to scour silt out of the bed of the streams.
The Project addressed these issues, in its core aims, and offered farmers in the catchment, a programme of stock fencing and coppice management of bank-side tree growth.
The work also included some of the many small side streams which flow off the hills, as these are likely to be very important as spawning areas and as ‘nurseries’ for the main rivers.
Central to the Project is an ongoing scientific monitoring programme, to accurately measure the impact of this work, on fish and other wildlife species.
The project was based on a number of principles which have been successfully demonstrated on many other rivers in the UK and, through the restoration of the historic trout and grayling stocks, was ultimately aimed at providing farmers with an independent and sustainable benefit from the management of an important wildlife habitat.
The Project costs were £1.5 million and these were funded through Defra, £1.1M and the Project Partners £0.4M from cash donations and in kind volunteer and professional work.
The MFA contributed £3000 and countless in kind man hours of funding to this important catchment scale project.
The partners involved in the River Monnow Project Were:
The Game Conservancy Trust (Lead Partner)
The Salmon & Trout Association and the
S&TA Trust
The Grayling Society
The Environment Agency (Wales)
The Monnow Fisheries Association
In 1999/2000, a detailed survey of river habitat quality of the upper Monnow catchment was undertaken by fisheries scientists from The Game Conservancy Trust.
In addition to the location of important wildlife habitats, this survey indicated the extent of river habitat degradation resulting from livestock access and allowed the extent and nature of shading by unmanaged bank side alder growth to be quantified.
Aimed at the significant improvement of a range of important wildlife habitats, the Project has employed habitat improvement techniques which require careful targeting and management to avoid concerns over local landscape changes which could possibly impact negatively in the short term, on a range of wildlife species.
These issues were addressed during the first short coppicing season between March and April 2003 and have continued throughout the 2004 and into the 2005 season with the completion of the Project in June 2006.
Throughout its life, the project actively sort whatever additional guidance was available to better guide its activities, in balancing the maximum long term benefits from its work with the avoidance of disturbance and damage to designated species or habitats.
Final Report Summary
The Project has been completed on time, on budget and has met or exceeded all of the principal targets set by Defra.
In addition to the direct improvement to the habitat the works to the rivers have greatly improved their “fishability” and have reconnected their value, as a resource, to the farmers and landowners on whom the ultimate health and sustainability of fish and fishing in our rivers rely.
This high profile Project is unique in many ways:
It is the largest ever river habitat restoration project motivated by improving the stocks of brown trout and grayling.
2. Record funding by Defra for a project of this nature.
3. No project has been so comprehensively scientifically monitored in order to ascertain its effects on the monitored species and habitat.
4. No similarly sized project has been carried out with this many partner organisations.
It has been our declared aim to carryout a flagship project. The templates for the Project application, business plan and budget and the Project itself can be easily adapted for use by the partner organisations for other similar applications.
We have produced protocols covering the carrying out of the field work and monitoring in order that we can demonstrate that we were operating to the highest standards of protection of BAP designated species that may be affected by the project’s activities.
Monitoring of the Project over a ten year period from its inception includes:
A. Numbers of; trout, grayling, crayfish, bullhead, lamprey and otter.
B. Use of temperature loggers to establish the possible effects on water temperature caused by coppicing.
C. The effects of gravel jetting on fry production.
This continued monitoring has enabled the Project to establish further limiting factors affecting monitored species, including point source and diffuse pollution problems in specific areas. This has allowed the Project to better focus the habitat work to take these into account. Future monitoring will enable the Project and Monnow Fisheries Association to identify other limiting factors in trout and grayling production.
The Project team and partner organisations have succeeded in adding to the initial aims and objectives to make this a truly catchment wide Project this will allow the benefits and improvements of created by the Project to become wholly sustainable in the future. These included:
I. The reintroduction of water voles to the river Dore following the habitat improvement works and eradication of mink and further monitoring and trapping of any that return.
II. Following the introduction of the Single Farm Payment and the ending of the Countryside Stewardship Scheme, direct encouragement of farmers within the catchment toward the Entry Level and Higher Level Schemes and the elements of these that favour rivers and streams. This has been particularly successful in regard to a farm at the head of an important spawning tributary that was responsible for introducing significant levels of silt to the stream. After advice from the Project staff the farmer has agreed to alter its farming practices and enter into the Higher Level Scheme.
III. The setting up of the and Project website,
monnow.org and the ongoing marketing of the fishing via it and the marketing leaflets will continue to increase the numbers of anglers visiting the river and further encourage farmers to maintain the fences and re-coppice the river banks.
IV. The high profile of the Project and her partner organisation has resulted in considerable national and local news coverage and publicity within specialist fishing magazines and this will continue to be built on.
V. The Monnow Fisheries Association have taken on the responsibility for the future marketing and maintenance of the fisheries and the promotion to the relevant bodies of the river as a whole and to consider further projects and works that will benefit the river.