A number of projects are planned to restore habitats within the catchment and help to reverse the decline of our sensitive freshwater species.
Restore, renaturalise, and protect some 30 kms of river banks by:
Installing 30 kms of stock-fencing, protecting 2 m wide buffer strips, enabling the regrowth of bankside vegetation
Coppicing and tree planting
Inserting fascines (rough bundles of brushwood which protect stream banks) and large woody debris
Provide alternative watering for farm stock e.g. solar pumped troughs
Controlling invasive non-native species
Enhancing 15 km of wooded riverbanks and lakeshore as biodiversity corridors
Improve salmonid spawning through increased access to clean spawning gravels
Freeze coring and analysis of spawning bed samples
De-silting and maintaining 600 m of compacted spawning gravels
Clearing discarded slate to create another 100 m of spawning gravels
Restoring 2 fish-passes to reopen 2 kms of clean spawning areas
Creating a 100 m spawning by-pass from a redundant leat
Increase Coniston Water’s reedbeds of Common reed, reduce sedimentation of Arctic charr spawning gravels and inhibit colonisation by New Zealand pygmy weed, an invasive plant species
Installing static and floating fencing
Creation of protective wave-barriers
Rhizome propagation and planting
Protect indigenous fish species, particularly Arctic charr, by improving the effectiveness of Tarn Hows fish screen to exclude non-indigenous species from the catchment
If you would like to be involved in our conservation activities, please contact us through our Get Involved page
Improve salmonid spawning through increased access to clean spawning gravels