Environmental Protection Solutions

Biosecurity

• Check, clean, dry
  • Personal habits.
  • Group trips.
  • Big events.
• Combat the logistical barrier by providing Check, Clean, Dry equipment at your club or bring it to your regular paddles.
• Report + engage.
• Improve personal knowledge.
• Spread awareness and educate.
• Permanent wash stations.
• Equipment sharing between clubs.
• Help with organised removal sessions of invasive species.

Physical Impacts

• Mindful entry + exit.
  • Floating entry policy – float your boat before entering to prevent bank erosion or plastic and other material entering the ecosystem.
  • Use pontoons.
  • Groups use the same entry + exit points.
• Taking care when standing on riverbeds e.g. during Rescue courses.
• Big events – should have a plan to minimise environmental impact.
• Care with parking/camping locations.
• Leave No Trace.
• Avoiding proximity to sensitive areas + species
  • Groups.
• Minimal tree cutting, when removing blockages for safety on rivers.
• Carry boats instead of dragging.
• Avoiding shallow areas.
• Improve personal knowledge + spread awareness.

Gear

• Consider brands’ manufacturing processes, materials and efforts for the environment.

• Avoid buying new, where possible and safe.
• Maintain and repair gear.
• Sell and hand down gear instead of binning.
• Ditch plastic (e.g. water bottles, coffee cups).
• Secure equipment to boats, where safe to do so.
• Clubs should consider borrowing equipment from other clubs where possible/ having shared equipment between clubs.

Transport

• Carpooling & shuttling – where possible paddlers should try to carpool and reduce the amount of vehicles used.
• Consider the use of electric vehicles to transport boats
• Bring instructors to groups for courses.
• Always take care with parking.

Positive Impacts

As well as reducing our negative impacts, we can leave a positive one.

• Beach + river cleanups.
• Biodiversity in shed/ clubhouse/ container spaces.
• River restoration efforts.
• Club environmental strategies/plans (written or conversational).
• Encouraging and facilitating personal and community connection with our waters and overall helping to foster a greater sense of care for them.
• Citizen science e.g. reporting invasive species, water quality testing, plastic and litter surveys, species i.d. or monitoring, bio-blitzing.

Recognising Threats

One of the best things we can do to protect our water bodies is be able to recognise threats from other sources.

• Algal blooms/ eutrophication.
• Plastic/ litter pollution.
• Chemical leaks.
• Oil leaks.
• Sewage/ urban waste water.
• Lack of bank vegetation.
• Eroded banks.
• Abstraction – Where someone takes water from a river or lake.
• Hydromorphological alteration – where some one changes a river bed, course or features.