Today I was at the Game Fair – along with my colleague Angela Julian who runs our supporters scheme.
We met a variety of interesting people – I’m particularly hoping to speak again to one farmer who had twenty ponds in varying stages of succession and was keen not to dredge them all out at once – which is absolutely the right approach. And we signed up some new members too.
When you talk to the farming community – who are a big part of the audience at the Game Fair – it’s often hard to get away from the fact that pollution is the major pond management problem facing many people – and it’s often not easy to find a solution to this problem.
So during the day we’ve discussed the near inevitability of springs being polluted these days (it’s very sad because most people assume that springs are pure – perhaps they’re lulled into a false sense of security by bottled spring water), what to do about a pond covered by Water Fern (try to get rid of the massive amounts of polluting phosphorus which is usually the cause), and how to deal with blanketweed (very tricky – telling people that you need unpolluted water isn’t much comfort as it’s quite often impossible to clean up the water source in existing ponds).
Which is why it’s always good to catch people at the pond creation stage - because very often, when you’re starting from scratch, you can find a clean water supply to get the pond off to a good start.
Which also makes today’s publicity about the Million Ponds Project particularly appropriate.
