Whoosh Explore Canoe Club support the local river environment by undertaking environmental projects each year on our local rivers. In 2018 our members started to undertake the cleaning up of the river via weekly checks on the river to remove litter and rubbish, getting recognition from Clear Access Clear Waters awards from British Canoeing, help with the River and Canals trust to establish new techniques for removing invasive plants without the need for using harmful weed killers to control the build up of invasive pennywort that had totally taken over the rivers backwaters.
More recently we started to look beyond the state of the river and now also tackle the removal of non native species which are growing as weed in the river or on the river banks. we are tackling the invasive species including Himalayan Balsom.
We are looking at the quality of the rivers in our local area to see if we can undertake improvements to the river environment.
We conduct regular litter picks and our team has work to eradicate floating pennywort which was well established in the upper reaches of the river. the task involved a committed team of our paddling club working each week to monitor and record where invasive species had taken hold of the river.
Please drop us a line if you would like to get involved in our challenge to remove Himalayan Balsam which is co-ordinated via Andy Gee our environmental officer at the club.
