This meeting was an opportunity to reflect and celebrate what has been achieved so far by the partnership since it began in 2012, from the formation of the Partnership and the Tamar Plan to the on the ground delivery of projects. It was a chance for those involved from the very beginning to take stock of the work to date and to provide inspiration for joining now.
Couldn’t make it?
No problem, the Tamar Review presentation can be found here and the project posters which have information about those spoken about at the meeting and more can be found here.
Although there has been all this activity within the catchment there is still much to do before we achieve the vision of a ‘landscape with healthy, functional ecosystems that provide a healthy and productive landscape now and, in the future’.
We will now be looking forward to the next 5 years to plan how we can continue to work towards the catchment vision. It is very likely that the issues facing the catchment and the action plan required to tackle them will not change much, but this process will review the current evidence and provide updates where necessary. We also hope to identify where there are gaps in activity and gaps within the partnership so that we can address these and help support wider collaborations.
The role of this partnership is to facilitate communication between everyone working within the catchment landscape. The Catchment Based Approach (CaBA), aims to have an oversight of the projects, strategies, targets etc. within the catchment to facilitate information sharing and opportunities for joined up working. For us to drive this forward we need you, your enthusiasm, your knowledge and your reach.
The next steps:
-
We are undertaking a stakeholder analysis to review who we have engaged already and who is yet to be engaged. Please let us know if you have any suggestions of who we should be trying to reach and include as a partnership.
-
We are reviewing the available evidence we have for the catchments current condition using the CaBA data package. If you have any data/ information that you are happy to share so that it can help inform the catchment plan, please get in touch.
-
Environment Agency future of rivers consultation. Hopefully many of you are already aware of the Challenges and Choices consultation seeking your views and ideas on the future of our water environment. This will inform how the SW river basin district will be managed from 2021. Challenges covered include dry weather, climate change, pollution in our waters and invasive non-native species. Residents and organisations are invited to give views on future management of our water environments. We will be holding a workshop in early February to help put together a response to the consultation from the catchment partnership, more details to follow soon…