Summary: 

We are raising funds to create original, impactful digital content to feed a powerful viral campaign that will pressure government to fulfill its duty to protect our rivers from the pollution caused by profit-focussed corporations and agricultural malpractice. 

We believe that only by pushing those in charge to take immediate action can we ultimately save our rivers from the pollution and incessant environmental degradation they continue to suffer from. 

To celebrate Earth Day, we are raising funds for our project. 

Our target is £25k. For every £1 donated we have another donor who will match-fund your donation. So essentially your donation will be doubled! 

The Problem:

Our rivers are being subject to unacceptable environmental abuse. Recently published figures showed that raw sewage was discharged into our rivers over 372,000 times last year, meaning human effluent was pumped into them for over 2.6 million hours in total. An equivalent amount of river pollution also comes from the vast quantity of animal waste, fertilisers and pesticides spread on the land by the agricultural sector and then washed into rivers up and down the country. 

While this environmental catastrophe unfolds, it appears that our government is actually looking to relax targets for water quality and pollution levels. Currently, chronic underfunding of the UK’s environmental protection agencies means that prosecutions against those polluters who blatantly break environmental laws rarely happen in practice, creating a culture whereby it is widely accepted that anybody can dump toxic waste into our rivers without punishment.  

 'The state of our rivers is a national disgrace, with many in severe ecological decline due to constant pressure from both sewage discharge and agricultural malpractice. We must act now to save them before it’s too late.'  

                                           Charles Watson, Chairman of River Action

 The Solution: 

The government is failing to do its duty in protecting our rivers, so let’s unite and make it our own before it’s too late. 

River Action will launch a nationwide viral campaign to expose the root cause of the shameful state of our rivers, namely the collapse of environmental protection and enforcement. It is our goal to ensure that addressing river pollution urgently becomes an issue the government can no longer ignore. 

We will create a campaign which will use creative filmmaking and digital communications to convey a clear, accessible and powerful message about the state of our rivers, the failure of the relevant official bodies to protect them, and the actions needed to do so. We will use all social media channels and our many supporters to campaign far and wide - creating a viral campaign that raises national public awareness and puts immense pressure on those at the highest level to enforce better environmental protection.

This campaign aims to elevate our exposure of the shameful behaviour of all varieties of polluters, and the lamentable state of environmental protection in the UK and to make it an issue that is acknowledged to be one of huge public concern - an issue the government is forced to address. 

River Action previously launched a petition pressuring the government to restore the funding of the Environment Agency (EA) - England’s environmental protection agency responsible for rivers. At the last count our petition has received almost 60,000 signatures, and the government is now starting to restore the EA’s previously slashed budgets. 

People power works!

It is imperative now that we continue our work and see our rivers run clean again, with efficient monitoring, regular inspections and continuously enforced regulations put back in place.  

We need your help

We can’t do this  without you. If you want to help save Britain’s rivers, please donate and share!

Our target is £25k. For every £1 donated we have another donor who will match-fund your donation. So essentially your donation will be doubled!

Thank you for all your support and Happy Earth Day! 

Together we can #saveourrivers