Features / Bristol Charity Advent Calendar 2024
Bristol Charity Advent Calendar 2024, day 14: Bristol Avon Rivers Trust
Bristol Avon Rivers Trust (BART) is a charity which delivers education, land and river management advice, and practical river restoration work.
The charity aim to reconnect communities to their local rivers, and help them to better appreciate and improve them for the benefit of people and wildlife.
BART also aims to conserve and enhance the status of our waterbodies for current and future generations.
is needed now More than ever
A recent initiative in south Bristol saw BART commission artists to make “drain art”.
It was part of their Only Rain Down the Drain campaign, reinforcing the message that pouring contaminants such as paint and soap down a surface water drain leads directly to rivers which could harm wildlife, pollute water and damage ecosystems.
BART’s Only Rain Down the Drain campaign in Bishopsworth – photo: BART
Earlier in 2024, more than a dozen brushwood berms – woody structures built in the river to encourage natural processes and increase flow and habitat diversity for river wildlife – were added to a one-kilometre stretch of Patchway Brook, a tributary of the River Frome.
The woody deflectors were positioned in the channel in suitable locations to encourage natural processes to begin creating new good quality habitat.
Over time, these berms will become self-sustaining, forming deeper pools in areas with the swiftest flow and clearing silt from the riverbed.
The berms will also trap silt and grow vegetation, providing valuable new habitats for a variety of wildlife, including mammals, birds and insects.
Bristol Avon Rivers Trust has been working to restore the river habitat along Patchway Brook, a tributary of the River Frome which flows through the Three Brooks Nature Reserve – photo: BART
For more information about Bristol Avon Rivers Trust, visit www.bristolavonriverstrust.org
Read next:
Our top newsletters emailed directly to you
