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Why the WYE ?
The Wye’s stunning beauty
captures the imagination of
everyone who visits it. It was
voted the nation’s favourite
river in 2010, its vast lengths
of unspoilt beauty described
as ‘magical and timeless’.
The whole river is a Site of Special
Scientific Interest (SSSI) and a
European Special Area of
Conservation (SAC). It is of
international importance for migrating
fish such as salmon, shad and the
mysterious lamprey, as well as home
to otters, kingfishers, the imperilled
white-clawed crayfish and water vole.
The source of the Wye is on
Plynlimonn in mid-Wales, where its
sisters, the Severn and the Rheidol,
also rise. The catchment of the Wye
drains 4136 km2 and a population of
230,000 people.
“
The river – any river – links not just
scenically and socially, but also
ecologically. It is the highway up and
down which birds, bats, salmon and
even seals move around the landscape.
Formerly, it also transported people and
materials, but now it transmits our
activities. The river formed the
catchment and everything in the
catchment influences the river: standing
by the bank we watch the soils and
fertiliser shed by up-stream farming pass
by, along with fallen trees and discarded
waste from far away. Sometimes as we
watch the river passes smoothly and
silently, but at other times it rustles and
hisses like the snake its course mimics on
the map. It even disguises itself: who
can tell where the river runs when it
floods the whole valley?
dr george peterken
”
www.harpercollins.co.uk/cr-102954/george-peterken
In rivers the water that you touch is
the last of what has passed and the
first of that which comes (Leonardo da Vinci)
Water is the only mineral that is found naturally on Earth in three forms; liquid, gas and solid