Save Our Taff

Our rivers are in danger. We need to act fast to Save Our Taff.

Rivers are the lifeblood of our natural world. They shape our landscape and sustain a huge diversity of life. In fact, all animals are dependent on an abundant and reliable supply of clean water. Rivers sustain the natural environment, wildlife, and people in equal measure.

To say that the state of our UK rivers is worrying would be an understatement. The UK is ranked as one of the worst countries in Europe for water quality, with 40% of rivers failing quality targets due to pollution. In 2022, raw sewage was discharged into UK waterways on over 300,000 separate occasions.

Welsh rivers are no exception, with 6 of the 20 most polluted rivers in the UK being found here in Wales. The Taff was on this list, having experienced over 9,500 hours of sewage being pumped into its waters in 2022 alone. And it's not just sewage, there's a chemical cocktail of pesticides and plastics making their way into our river as well. This is simply unacceptable and cannot be tolerated any longer.

Our rivers are no longer suitable for people or wildlife, and an unhealthy river can only spell disaster. This is a crisis – and one which the public along with our youth forum members want to see urgently resolved.

Our Campaign

This is why we are launching the Save Our Taff campaign. Our objectives within the Save Our Taff campaign are as follows:

• Connecting with existing groups already tackling the pollution issues on the Taff. We will highlight the work already being done, and open an invitation to collaborate.
• Involving the communities that live along the Taff to engage with the campaign. We aim to host a series of events in different community spaces along the river. This will include litter picks, engagement stalls, and river species ID sessions, to name but a few.
• Partnering with researchers to set-up citizen science sampling of the river. Through this we aim to collect quantitative evidence of the pollution in our river. From here, we aim to build a long-term dataset which continues to track river pollution in the future.
• Collating all the data collected through the different activities. This will include pictures, blog posts, data from the citizen science projects, and so on. We will keep a record of this through our website, where partners and members of the public can engage with it.
• Presenting this evidence at the Senedd next year during the 2024 Stand for Nature summit. We will invite politicians, partner groups, and environmental regulators to come together to view this evidence. Our aim is to ask our government what they are doing to tackle this issue, and to make sure they recognise the value of the Taff.

Want to get involved?

If you’re between the ages of 9-24 and want to help with this campaign, then join our Stand for Nature forum today!

Interested in collaborating? Then get in touch with our Wilder Engagement Officer Alex at a.griffiths@welshwildlife.org.