Communities Taking Back Their Rivers
“We are where we are” is a common refrain. WRU wants to engage communities to take control and be accountable for the streams and rivers that they live on or near. Change will come because the communities have “skin in the game”.
Contact us to get help in changing the health of your river, stream, ditch, pond etc. We know the ropes on how to get your local representatives to listen up and get change done. Interested in joining the team then contact us too.
Meet the team
Kim Waters
Founder / Trustee
Kim lives in the Usk Valley and is committed to seeing a change in the state of Welsh rivers. Having spent a career with Reuters Ltd and more recently running the Abergavenny Food festival he is committed to seeing food and environmental systems fit for future generations.
Ruth Tudor
Trustee / Advisory
Ruth grew up in Eryri on a farm that straddles both the Dysynni and the Mawddach rivers. She sees the future health and vitality of Welsh communities, culture, heritage, language, people, landscapes, rivers and wildlife as inextricably connected in a lively and complex system of relationships. She now farms in Monmouthshire in a mixed organic system with horticulture and livestock. Alongside farming, she is a psychotherapist working with humans and with horses helping humans. Welsh is her first language.
info@wru.org.uk
Emma Wiik
Advisory
Emma is a research ecologist with expertise in data analysis and visualisation. She gained her PhD in freshwater (paleo) ecology in 2012 at University College London, working on protected calcareous lakes in England.
Since then, she has worked mainly in the Higher Education sector as a researcher in freshwater and conservation science. She has worked in Loughborough; Regina, SK, Canada; and landed in Wales in 2017 when she started working at Bangor University. She has been a vocal critic of the toxic effects of short-term contracts in Higher Education both on the workforce and on science.
She speaks Swedish, Finnish, English, and is an active Welsh learner.
Emma using time-released from working part-time not only for a better work-life balance, but also for activism, and for supporting the Welsh Rivers Union.
Henry Wheatley
Trustee / Advisory
Henry grew up in Abergavenny, and his upbringing in the Vale of Usk fostered a strong connection to, and interest in, his local natural and historic environments, landscapes, and communities.
Following his undergraduate, he undertook an MSc in Sustainable Development at Sussex, during which time he strengthened a passion for future-gen thinking, sustainable food and farming systems, riverine health, decarbonisation, and Just Transitions. His dissertation explored and assessed changing agricultural and land use policy in post-Brexit Wales, in the context of the goals of the Well-being of Future Generations Act, and the obligations of the Environment Act to address climate change and reach Net Zero. He is joining the WRU as a young voice for long-term change that benefits future generations.
He is now based in South London, but is back in the Black Mountains at least once a month, helping manage and develop agroforestry planting schemes and establish a small family fruit and nut business on 11.5 acres of undeveloped upland pasture.
Tony Konieczny
Chairman / Trustee / Advisory
I was born in Thirsk, North Yorkshire and lived the first 18 years of my life beside the Cod Beck a fine tributary of the River Swale. I shared my father’s passion for angling and caught my first salmon on the River Irt when I was 12 years old. The fascination with rivers has been lifelong. After leaving college I taught Biology for 10 years in Secondary schools. During this period, I became academically interested in ecology and learning outside of the classroom.
In 1980 I took up a post at an Outdoor Education Centre, In the Grwyne Fawr valley, to develop an Ecology course, initially for “A” level students but was able to develop courses for GCSE students and a comprehensive Environmental Education programme for Primary pupils. The work attracted grant funding from the Schools Curriculum Development Council and was shared as best practice. We were regarded as a centre for excellence. I continued to develop the courses for 28 years until my retirement.
I have deep interest in both lotic and lentic ecology, and have been able to use my enthusiasm and acquired knowledge to inspire young biologists.
Since my retirement I have served as a trustee of the Ty’r Morwydd Field Study Centre, and have been a local town councillor. The Town Council has created a strategy and action plan to deliver environmental projects to enhance and protect our local biodiversity.
tony@wru.org.uk
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