|
The Campaign Team may have been relatively silent for the past month or two, but we have not been idle.
You will remember we started by slating the Environment Agency about the appalling lack of enforcement on our rivers. It is a national disgrace, about that there can be no doubt, but what can we practically do about it?
We tried appealing to the Welsh Assembly Government. What did they do?
They instructed the Environment Agency to carry out a review of their enforcement policy nationally.
The Environment Agency did as they were asked: their report was presented to the Welsh Assembly Government.
That report can be read here on this site under the ‘progress’ tab. What did it say? In essence and to greatly over simplify “we have no idea of the level of illegal activity taking place on Welsh fisheries and lack the facilities identify it”
The Environment Agency then offered the Campaign the chance to suggest just who should try to establish the truth. The Agency made suggestions: university specialist departments; the police and several more.
We had no faith in any third party because of the very special nature of poaching and the fact the crimes are victimless. (The fish have no voice.)
So where do we go from here?
We take the bull by the horns and offer to do it ourselves!
This is just what we have done and now we have to do it. When we say we, we mean all of us; the angling community and as many of our friends as we can persuade to help.
The 0800 80 70 60 hotline number as lost all credibility: few anglers have any faith in it and even fewer use it. The problem is that the reports from the 0800 80 70 60 number are used as the basis for assessing the level of illegal activity. No reports = no illegal activity. Can we address this issue?
We think so. We have, in partnership with the Environment Agency, set up an online reporting system. You can go to the Campaign web site and report an incident on line, and we get a copy. So now you can use the 0800 80 70 60 number to report an incident that requires an immediate report requiring potentially immediate attention by Agency enforcement staff then, later, you can confirm that report on line and as we get a copy we can start to build our own data base to build up a picture of illegal activity taking place. We can, if you all help. Please encourage all your angling friends and contacts to not only use the 0800 80 70 60 but to confirm their calls on the Campaign Report an Incident page. All details remain 100% guaranteed anonymous: no conditions – anonymous.
Please ask your club or syndicate to add a link to our report and incident page or just to the Campaign site and ask your members to use the facility.
We have been offered the opportunity to help ourselves: please use it.
There are other ideas in the pipeline and as they develop we will keep you informed.
This is our chance to help ourselves. Please join in. This is our Campaign!
Please take a few minutes to have a look at the rest of The Campaign site and look and see how we are continuing our work to help protect our fisheries. We are a single issue campaign.
Please hep and please comment on the forum or by contacting us via the web contact address.
Leave a Reply