Anglers unite to become powerful conservation alliance

New organisation aims to represent interests of some of Britain's 2.7m anglers concerned with declining fish stocks and pollution
John Vidal and Graham Mole
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 14 January 2009 14.22 GMT

Anglers to forge a new environmental alliance
Anglers have united to set up what could become one of the biggest conservation bodies in Europe, with the political muscle to rival the National Trust, the RSPB and Friends of the Earth.
The new Anglers' Trust, formed after six existing smaller fishing groups agreed to disband, hopes to sign up one in five of Britain's 2.7m regular anglers, who are divided roughly equally between sea and inland water enthusiasts.
"Anglers are not the usual woolly liberals you get in the WWF or the National Trust. They range across urban and rural areas and both working and upper class. Together they are very powerful," said Mark Lloyd, chief executive of the new organisation.
"We are very concerned about declining fish stocks, river pollution, and industrial developments. There's no point fishing if there's no fish, so half the work will be campaigning. The environment is massive for anglers, but all the existing organisations were quite small, so we'll be able to represent all anglers much more efficiently and effectively at national and international level."
The trust which includes coarse, game and river anglers is expected to lobby government and corporations to try to reverse the damage caused by over-fishing, as well as control sand and gravel extraction, prosecute polluters and reduce the volume of water taken from rivers. They also plan to campaign to stop farmed fish being allowed to escape into the wild. Anglers have long been regarded as the eyes and ears of the water environment: alerting the authorities about damage to British waters and frequently prosecuting polluters. A separate arm of the trust, known as Fish Legal, will continue the work of the Anglers Conservation Association (ACA) which claims compensation from polluters and which, remarkably, has barely lost a legal case in the last 50 years.
Angling now rivals football as Britan's most popular pastime. The Environment Agency said last week that it had sold a record 1.3m fishing licences last year and this is forecast to rise by 26,000 this year.
A separate survey by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency found the number of sea anglers, who don't need licences, is around 1.4 million. In addition there are believed to be hundreds of thousands of people who only fish occasionally.
Mat Crocker, head of fisheries at the Environment Agency, said: "Angling is one of the most popular participator sports in the world – and is a cheap, healthy and environmentally friendly pastime that everyone can enjoy. It brings huge social and community benefits as well as contributing to the conservation and biodiversity of our waterways.
"Improved river quality over the past decade has helped boost fish stocks for the sport – for example, salmon numbers in England and Wales have increased by 40,000 in the last ten years."