Welcome To The Kingfisher Wildlife Diaries – John Bailey
July 31st 2009
Lessons from the Game Fair - Part Two
If you look at Norfolk's rivers, you will find they are shadows of what they once were. The River Glaven in North Norfolk, for example, runs with roughly an eighth as much volume as it did forty or fifty years ago. The simple fact is that we're abstracting huge amounts of water from our rivers and from the water table to satisfy our ever-growing needs.
The next depressing fact is that we're not doing that much to curb our desire for water. In the UK, on average, each and every one of us uses a 180 litres of water per day. In Germany, that figure is 110 litres.
Our water companies are also quite happy - proud even - to flag up the fact that they lose approximately fifteen percent of our water in transit through leaks. Fifteen percent! That's nearly a sixth of our water supply is just being frittered away.
And whilst we record this waste of water our rivers, our arteries of life, are simply withering. Everything suffers. The fish. The amphibians. Water fowl. Herons. Grebes. Everything we love to see is on the retreat. Once again, it's simply too expensive to put our environment right.