Anna Forbes, Senior Project Officer for Action for the River Kennet, explains two exciting new projects they are working on. The biggest river restoration project on the Kennet in many years and an exciting educational outreach project run for the first time in England.
Action for the River Kennet (ARK) is the Rivers Trust for the Kennet and Pang catchments. We are a registered charity and run a variety of projects at a range of scales, taking a catchment-based approach to restore, monitor, educate and lobby to improve our rivers.
ONE OF THE LARGEST EVER RIVER KENNET RESTORATION PROJECTS
Partnerships 4 Nature (P4N) is a partnership project funded by Defra’s Species Survival Fund and ARK are leading on the large-scale river habitat creation, improvement and restoration works within the P4N programme to carry out 2.5km of SSSI chalk stream habitat work.
We are working closely with the Benham Estate and their River Keeper at The Wilderness, Kintbury. Phase 1 has been completed with Phase 2 having started in late spring 2025.
The capital works have been repairing the natural form and function of the chalk stream habitat for brown trout, whilst also benefitting other wildlife too. In autumn 2024 riverbanks have been regraded to reconnect the Kennet to the floodplain. This re-wetting the water meadows and woodlands along with wetland scrape creation brings rich new habitats for an abundance of species, particularly wading birds.
The scrapes have been created through excavating site won gravel, which we’ve used to construct the riverbed on a newly dug bypass channel to improves fish passage (vital for healthy fish populations).
Brown trout have already been spotted swimming up the new channel, only dug in October last year. This summer we’ll be running led volunteer days to dress the channel. Volunteers will be planting native marginal plants along the riverbank and establishing stream water-crowfoot, a native aquatic plant. Next winter we anticipate this channel will be a perfect spawning grounds for wild brown trout.
In spring this year our trained volunteer riverfly monitors will begin riverfly monitoring the new channel to start collecting data on key indicator groups of invertebrates and monitor how this evolves as the river matures.
VOLUNTEERS MAKING A DIFFERENCE
Our wonderful volunteers have been a valuable resource for the P4N project contributing many hours to improvements on a feeder stream that flows into the Kennet at the fishery. Over 6 days the led volunteer teams have put meanders into an otherwise straight channel, through building brushwood mattresses and some tree hinging works.
The flow diversity these simple but well executed structures bring is visible immediately. The submerged wood will also provide refuge for fish fry and increase suitable habitat for freshwater invertebrates. Speaking of volunteers, in April last year Simon Tilbury, Sportfish Group Head of Marketing, volunteered with ARK on the P4N project on The Wilderness:
Through volunteering with us the project has enabled access opportunities to parts of the Kennet not normally open to the public. We have also hosted a variety of training days, water vole survey training, an accredited Riverfly Monitoring Workshop and most recently a redd spotting training session.
Water vole surveying days were carried out by volunteers in advance of the river works, this is a wonderful way to experience the river, wading upstream whilst mapping signs of this endangered mammal.
We now have a pair of trained volunteer redd spotters walking the riverbanks of the fishery logging new redds at each visit on our redd spotter app. This again is a win all round, ARK gathers data on where and when trout are spawning and the volunteers get to walk the Kennet banks at private stretch.
These citizen science training days have enabled us to further expand our citizen science volunteer coverage and data collection, not only at The Wilderness but beyond in the wider Kennet catchment and Pang catchment too.
To join in with our volunteering opportunities, including the P4N project, visit our voluntering web page »
THAMES SALMON SCHOOL - A NATIONAL FIRST
Our award-winning River School educational outreach is hugely popular. We understand the importance of getting children fishing, outdoors and in the river as being the best learning experience. Our aim is to get students enjoying, valuing and understanding their local rivers through first-hand experience.
While our activities are adaptable, River School centres around kick sampling and invertebrate and fish identification. Educating children how special their rivers are, what lives in them, the issues they are facing and actions we can all take to help. In 2022-23 we worked with 2,012 children, in 2023-24 with 2,069 children and we are on track to surpass 2000 children again in 2024-25.
This academic year we added Thames Salmon School to our outreach programme, a new collaborative pilot educational project we’ve just completed. It is part of an international project The Salmon School and brings to life the interconnectedness of our relationship with rivers. It’s a rich hands-on educational programme, blending natural history, geography, art and science to engage and connect students with their local rivers whilst raising awareness and knowledge of the iconic Atlantic salmon, a fish which is now classified as Endangered in England.
Although salmon are not present in the Kennet catchment, they are plenty of brown trout and they are from the Salmonidae family. Trout share the salmon's need for cold, clean water and healthy habitats, which are also vital for many other species. So this is a really important message to get children understanding and onboard with how they and their families can help.
Atlantic Salmon used to be found within the Thames catchment and are a keystone species meaning they are critical to the healthy functioning of ecosystems. These fish undertake an extraordinary lifecycle and cold, clean water is vital to their survival; including when they are in our rivers. Water quality, salmon farming and barriers to migration are just some of the factors that have contributed to this fish now being classified as Endangered.
The students at John Rankin Primary school in Newbury that we delivered this project to over three separate workshops not only learnt all these fascinating salmon facts and issues, but the project also enabled the students to become citizen scientists. At a day with us on the Kennet at the beautiful fishery The Wilderness, in addition to invertebrate identification to assess for pollution, the children also got to take environmental DNA (eDNA) samples. This has contributed to an international database and brought to life what lives in the river that the children did not observe.
On the riverbanks we ran an activity where the students created art inspired by the freshwater river life they had found and observed that day, using natural paint they have made from soil and river water.
Excitingly for our eDNA Reveal workshop with the students back at the school, 17 species of fish were revealed through the eDNA barcoding! We were joined live online from America by The Salmon School’s founder artist Joseph Rossano. The school received an extremely special gift, a glass blown salmon from children in America who have also taken part in this international project. Students now have the silver glass salmon in school as an ongoing reminder of the project, their internationally rare rivers on their doorstep and the plight of wild Atlantic salmon. They also have ongoing access to their very own online eDNA map for further interest and learning.
Thames Salmon School has been a pilot project, with the goal to expand the project and invite more schools to participate and join The Salmon School, to create further collaboration, high quality learning and river experiences; whilst making sure this generation of children feel connected to their rivers.
For more information on our educational outreach visit our River School webpage or email anna@kennetandpang.org
