South Devon Catchment Partnership Formed in December 2013 the South Devon Catchment Partnership covers the river catchments of the Rivers Yealm, Erme, Avon, Dart & Teign and their associated tributaries. The Partnership is a new group building on the successful work and approach pioneered by the Rivers Trust movement across the UK. We hope it will become a wide partnership drawing together a group of engaged organisations and individuals far beyond the ‘usual suspects’ around the issues of; Urban development and its impacts on the catchment; water availability; diffuse pollution from rural and urban sources; physical modifications and all the Significant Water Management Issues currently identified by the EA and others for the Water Framework Directive. The Partnership has the potential to provide a source of inspiration to spread the catchment management agenda into the wider public arena through its members and demonstrations of good practice, thus helping embed WFD aims into plans and processes of business, organisations and statutory bodies. It could also seek to assess the current classifications and data underpinning the River Basin Management Planning (RBMP) process, whilst also identifying valuable additional sources of evidence and information. In this way the Partnership could foster and support growth of local initiatives for delivery, these could be both projects and local action groups. It is likely that the Partnership will be continually looking for new members who are interested in
Aims of the Partnership The broad aims of the South Devon Catchment Partnership are: • To produce Catchment Plans for the river catchments within the South Devon area. • To seek to engage with existing organisations, groups and projects in whatever way is felt to be mutually most beneficial and to avoid unnecessary duplication of effort. • To develop collaborative projects to improve environmental conditions, and raise funds to deliver them. • To support activities and projects which meet the aims of the Partnership being carried out in the area through promotion, funding and expertise. • To be wide and open and to reach out to organisations, individuals and groups including those not historically included in ‘catchment management’ work. • To embed a catchment management ethos into the operations of our own businesses and plans as well as advocate the take up of catchment management actions by others. • To be willing to go beyond the requirements of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) but to retain the WFD as a core objective in our work. • To pursue a twin-track approach – delivering Water Framework Directive aims in the short-term, but seeking to deliver more widely on environmental improvements wherever possible, including themes such as ‘Paid Ecosystem Services’ mapping.
Catchment Partnership
how their actions impact on the river catchments.