Mark Firth: The Fragile Beauty of Our Chalkstreams is Under Threat [6 min listen]

Voices of the Countryside

Decades of mismanagement and poor policy has left our rare and precious chalkstream environments in a perilous state

Two rare environments are close to my heart – Heather Moorland and Chalkstreams. Both are almost unique on a global scale and thus massively important.

You might think these are two very different environments; well, yes, they are – but there are many similarities. They are also supremely delicate; lack of management or the wrong sort can lead to damage taking a decade or more to repair.

I’ve been involved with grouse moors all my life – and have managed a famous stretch of the Middle Test for more than 40 years; this makes me a very old fart who’s experienced perhaps the most fundamental decades for both.