Revisiting the Case for River Conservation - River Conservation and Management - page 10

References

still recognizes the value of the uncommon. It
emphasizes uses, but does not neglect non-use
values. With the passage of time, these two
domains have grown closer together, encouraged
(in Europe) by legislation such as the WFD. Indeed,
since 1990, public bodies in the UK have been
given a statutory biodiversity duty to be exercised
when carrying out their work, but the environment
agencies and the conservation agencies still have
distinct roles to play. There will not always be total
agreement, but the challenge is to find common
ground and the right balance when deciding which
activities should be permitted and which are likely
to jeopardize conservation values. At present, for
instance, the UK environment and conservation
agencies are debating whether the environmental
standards used under the WFD (e.g. for nutrients
or for river flow) are sufficiently stringent to protect
river SACs.
In all of this there is an overriding need for
a genuinely holistic view of rivers and their
catchments, and assessments of conservation value
at a national (or even an international) scale. Boon
(1992) said 'The time has come, then, to press
for conservation strategies which encompass the
river resource as a whole, so that the proponents
of conservation are not continually forced to fight
battles for individual [river] systems. This means
better management now, sensitive planning in the
future, and undoing at least some of the damage of
the past'.
The time has surely come to put words into
action.

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Acknowledgements

Financial support for the conference which formed
the background to this chapter was provided by
the Environment Agency (England and Wales),
Scottish Environment Protection Agency, Northern
Ireland Environment Agency, Scottish Natural
Heritage, Natural England, Countryside Council
for Wales, Joint Nature Conservation Committee
and Yorkshire Water plc. I am grateful to Dr ML
Davison for supplying data used in the preparation
of the text.

peaks at intermediate thresholds. River

Research and Applications 23 : 579-94.
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Identifying freshwater ecosystems of national importance