Go with the flow and vote for your favourite Dorset or New Forest river (From Bournemouth Echo)

Go with the flow and vote for your favourite Dorset or New Forest river

8:00am Wednesday 1st September 2010 in

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LOVERS of the great outdoors in Dorset and the New Forest are being encouraged to vote for their favourite rivers.

The campaign by Our Rivers – a group spearheaded by the WWF, RSPB and the Angling Trust – also wants to be told about the most neglected waterways in the country.

Our Rivers was set up last year after the Environment Agency published a river management plan, which non-government organisations criticised for what they called a lack of ambition. They said that local knowledge would not be fed into the official process and so set up the Our Rivers campaign.

Now the campaign wants people to tell it about both the rivers they love and those that are in trouble.

With waters including the Stour, Avon, Frome and Piddle flowing through the county, Dorset residents have miles of choice, while those living in the New Forest also have many streams to choose from, from the Beaulieu River to Mill Lawn Brook.

The RSPB’s Tony Whitehead said: “What we hope is that people in Dorset will vote for some of Dorset’s stunning rivers, such as the Stour – which is an amazingly wildlife-rich river – the Piddle and the Frome.

“These rivers, from the RSPB’s point of view, are important for a whole range of birds.”

He said kingfishers in particular relied on healthy rivers and added: “Healthy rivers mean healthy birds.”

Our Rivers says that some rivers face pressures from pollution, poor drainage, invasive riverbank species such as signal crayfish and low water levels caused by over-abstraction.

Campaigner Ralph Underhill said: “This award will be a great celebration of one of our richest wildlife habitats – and one that everyone can enjoy because no one is more than a few minutes from a river, stream or brook.”

Voting at ourrivers.org.uk closes on October 31.