Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
River Thames wins world’s largest environmental prize
The Environment Agency has collected the world’s largest environmental prize after Britain’s most iconic river was crowned the beauty queen of the planet’s waterways.
The River Thames was selected out of hundreds of rivers across every continent as the winner of International Theiss River Prize, which celebrates outstanding achievement in river management and restoration.
London’s renowned waterway was up against the world-famous Yellow River, in China, Hattah Lakes, Australia, and the Smirnykh Rivers Partnership, in Japan in the competition’s finals.
The Thames scooped the prize thanks to its dramatic recovery from a biologically dead river in the 1950’s to today’s thriving waterway; teeming with fish, and with returning salmon, otter and sea trout populations.
The chemical quality of the rivers within the Thames catchment classed as ‘Very Good’ or ‘Good’, has improved from 53% in 1990 to 80% in 2008 while the estuary supports viable shellfisheries and is a nursery ground for commercial sole and bass stocks. The numbers of fish are increasing, with 125 different species recorded, including internationally important smelt and shad.
Since April 2005, 393 habitat enhancement projects have been completed and nearly 70 km of river has been restored or enhanced.
The River Thames was selected out of hundreds of rivers across every continent as the winner of International Theiss River Prize, which celebrates outstanding achievement in river management and restoration.
London’s renowned waterway was up against the world-famous Yellow River, in China, Hattah Lakes, Australia, and the Smirnykh Rivers Partnership, in Japan in the competition’s finals.
The Thames scooped the prize thanks to its dramatic recovery from a biologically dead river in the 1950’s to today’s thriving waterway; teeming with fish, and with returning salmon, otter and sea trout populations.
The chemical quality of the rivers within the Thames catchment classed as ‘Very Good’ or ‘Good’, has improved from 53% in 1990 to 80% in 2008 while the estuary supports viable shellfisheries and is a nursery ground for commercial sole and bass stocks. The numbers of fish are increasing, with 125 different species recorded, including internationally important smelt and shad.
Since April 2005, 393 habitat enhancement projects have been completed and nearly 70 km of river has been restored or enhanced.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by matt on
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Well done to the EA and all their hard workers. The Thames does look great.
Of course their work with cleaning up the Thames has been helped on by the decline of Britain's polluting industries. Those problems moved on to China, Eastern Europe etc.
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Permalink Reply by StephenBln on
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Trouble is, they threw the polluted baby out with the polluted water...
All the factories/industries that produced the pollution have gone (I'm thinking of the Lea here) and all the manufacturing jobs that went with them too..
It's all very well having a pre-industrial river quality.. but it would have been really clever to keep the jobs as 'clean jobs' too.. so perhaps it's not so much to be proud of after all.. and BTW Matt is right.. the jobs went to China and Eastern Europe too.. and that is why the UK has dropped two places over the last ten years on the World's Largest Economies Table.
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