Education and Communication

We aim to ​‘educate’ (in the broadest sense) and inform people about wild trout and their habitat. Our rivers are vital in so many ways — for managing floods and droughts, as places of beauty for recreation and pleasure, and as rich habitat for wildlife. There are very few truly natural, healthy rivers in the UK, so a key part of our communication is to demonstrate how rivers should work, and how they can be returned to more natural processes. 

Our Advisory Visit programme does this in the most direct way, by walking the river bank with anyone with an interest in a river and explaining what is good and what could be improved.

We also deliver habitat workshops. These are mucky, hands on, in the water days where a group of people learn how river habitat ​‘works’ and how to manage and improve it.

For a wider audience, this website is designed to provide in depth information with web pages, downloads and publications: for example, via our resource hubs on rivers, trout and beavers. 

Our video hub and You Tube channel has videos on a wide range of river and trout related topics, including videos of some of our projects. 

We have a number of publications, available from our web shop or from Amazon. These include: 

The Wild Trout Survival Guide. Now in its 4^th edition, this book takes a step-by-step approach through aspects of natural river function, human influences, good and bad habitat features — and then design and implementation of habitat improvement techniques. It’s a terrific, practical read for anyone interested in improving habitat for their trout. 

Our Trout in the Town Urban River Toolkit is a book created to give inspiration and guidance for mending your urban river, including organising and funding community groups. 

Our annual journal Salmo Trutta is a high quality printed magazine with a mix of articles about rivers, science, wildlife and fishing. It is free to WTT members and available to purchase in our web shop.

We work closely with universities to stay up to date with latest science on river ecology, geomorphology and fisheries and this is reflected in articles from respected academics in our journal, Salmo Trutta. 

Two examples of recent, highly topical articles are Professor Steve Ormerod writing about microplastics, and Shane Rothwell about phosphorous in the Wye catchment. 

Professor Andy Ferguson, with his deep expertise on trout DNA, is a regular advisor and contributor of blog posts and articles. He is one of a number of experts on our Scientific Advisory Panel.

Professor Jonathan Grey works part time for WTT as a hands-on, wet wadered Conservation Officer and part time for the University of Lancaster Environment Centre as Professor in Practice. He is a key link between the practical environment and the world of academia. He supports MSc students and early years researchers with their work, much of which features in our website blog (for example, this blog post about using drones to monitor river restoration).

Jonny writes a round up of science research for our annual journal and science based blog posts on current issues (for example: is habitat restoration effective for trout and salmon populations?) and carries out monitoring of his own habitat projects.

Our staff deliver talks to a wide variety of audiences, from academic conferences to local angling clubs and conservation groups. These are either in person or via video link (or both) with plenty of opportunity for discussion.

One example is shown below: WTT Conservation Officer Andy Thomas talks to the Watercress and Winterbournes Project (Hampshire Wildlife Trust) about chalk stream management and maintenance.

Please contact us if you would like a talk for your group.

We provide support to our sister NGOs and other groups who are campaigning to improve our rivers and their wildlife. Our day to day work on the river bank and in the river means that we are able to provide practical examples and evidence of issues such as pollution and dredging to add weight to their campaigns. 

Journalists contact us for interviews and our views.

Although we do not campaign directly, we can and do support those who do.