RESTORE and several partners with an interest in European water policy made the following submission to the European Commission's Consultation on Policy Options for the Blueprint to Safeguard Europe's waters. We highlight the importance of river restoration and green infrastructure for improving the health of Europe's waters and the role our networks can play in achieving these goals.

In a Radio 4 programme aired in April as part of the Nature series, Brett Westwood explored the growing use of coarse woody debris (CWD) in managing rivers.  

 ''According to Staffordshire Wildlife Trust, fish live in trees too'', says the BBC Radio 4. ''The Trust's biologists are using wood as a remarkably effective tool to change the depth and flow of streams and improve them for wildlife. They don't just stop at streams either: at the confluence of the Tame and Trent rivers, they've submerged entire willow trees in gravel islands in a project to widen the river channel.

A two day conference was hosted by the River Restoration Centre and held at Nottingham University in April. The event presented some of the most cutting edge and innovative ways of achieving river restoration to a 200 strong audience of international environmental experts.

Wetlands International expressed its deep concern about the proposed 53km Danube regulation project in Croatia in a letter to Croatia's Minister for Environment and Nature Protection Mirela Holy. The NGO understands that this regulation would have a severe impact upon the unique river landscape and the most highly valued floodplain area and forests of the entire Danube.

If you could make small changes to your lifestyle to protect and ‘Love Your River’, would you do it? 

That is the question that is being asked of everyone following the launch of a groundbreaking campaign to raise public awareness about the link between the health of our rivers and water use.