Southern Chalkstreams Project
The Southern Chalkstreams Project is a partnership between the Hampshire and the Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust, the Environment Agency and Natural England. The project aims to safeguard our special chalk rivers and their threatened chalk river wildlife, with a particular interest on protecting and expanding their important invertebrate communities.
| Check, clean, disinfect and dry: Find out how these four simple steps can help protect our native chalk river wildlife from invasive species and deadly diseases. |
Why Chalkstream Invertebrates?
A diverse invertebrate community is fundamental to a healthy chalk river or stream, providing food for fish and mammals and acting as freshwater detritivores, herbivores and predators. However, these species are often overlooked in conservation, with the major causes of invertebrate decline a result of:
- Habitat loss - through development and over-abstraction;
- Habitat decline - often simply due to poor river and bankside management;
- Pollution;
- Invasive species. Download the Wildlife Trust/Environment Agency leaflet on invasive species and the threats they bring.
Species
The Southern Chalkstreams Project will try and re-dress this balance, focusing on two National and European threatened species, southern damselfly Coenagrion mercuriale and white-clawed crayfish Austropotamobius pallipes. Furthermore, due to the risks they pose to our native white-clawed crayfish, the Southern Chalkstreams Project will also focus on the introduced and highly invasive American signal crayfish Pacifastacus leniusculus.
Find out more information on these species or download our booklet on Crayfish and River Users.
| Curse of the Celebrity Chef: Find out why trapping signal crayfish for the dinner table is of no conservation benefit - it can even make the problem worse! |
What we are doing
The Southern Chalkstreams Project has four key objectives through which we are conserving the ecology of these precious chalk rivers and streams. Click here for more information.
What's new?
To find out about current news and activities of the Southern Chalkstreams Project click here
How you can help
If you would like more information on how you can protect our chalk river wildlife or if you are interested in volunteering with the Southern Chalkstreams Project please click here.
