The river’s waterWild About The Erme River (WATER) is a catchment-focused environmental charity working to restore the Erme River, its tributaries and habitat to their naturally healthy state. Our aim is to safeguard people and wildlife from the harmful effects of pollution and to protect and improve the water quality and biodiversity of the Erme’s entire catchment area, its estuary and beaches.
WATER works in partnership with regional and local environment organisations, local environmental community groups, land managers, regulatory bodies and local authorities.
Our strategy is to take planned positive actions to protect the river from the harmful effects of pollution, ensure water quality is properly monitored and motivate landowners and South West Water to put measures in place to reduce further impacts and restore the river’s water quality, habitat and biodiversity.
WATER is currently working with the Environment Agency and the Rivers Restoration Centre to create a long-term Catchment Action Plan (CAP) for the Erme. WATER is fortunate in having, within its volunteer CAP team, specialists in environmental sciences, landscape architecture, GIS, land management and farming giving us the combined all round knowledge to undertake this vital and demanding task with assistance from Citizen Science volunteers.
The Erme, a creative inspiration for writers and artists
On its journey from source to sea, the Erme and its tributaries meander, flow and charge through some of south Devon’s finest landscapes including Dartmoor National Park and South Devon National Landscape, before emerging as a tidal estuary that flows into the sea on a stretch of one of South Devon’s most dramatic coastlines and beautiful, unspoiled beaches.
Little surprise then that this natural beauty should be an inspiration for creatives.
Dr Trevor Day is a UK writer with more than forty non-fiction books and numerous academic and popular articles to his credit.
Originally a marine biologist, Trevor gravitated to writing popular science before becoming an educational researcher and writing development specialist. His books have won various awards.
While a writer in residence on an Erme tributary, Trevor embarked on a journey down the Erme, providing him with the inspiration for a magnificently insightful article on the river, its environment and history. The work has been further supplemented with histories of the Erme’s mills and lime kilns. Trevor has also written a poem read it here.
Juli Fejer is a Suffolk-based painter creating expressive landscapes that are at once familiar and strange. Intense colour, use of verticals and unusual perspectives bring energy and immediacy to her work. She is inspired by her personal experience of the healing power of nature, and the wider relationship between society and the natural environment.
The chronic pain condition fibromyalgia gives Fejer an acute sensitivity to smells, sounds and colours, which allows her to pick up the nuances of her surroundings. Her art practice includes acrylic on canvas, watercolour, and painting on her iPad.
Juli’s variation in style reflects the Erme in its many expressive and ever-changing moods at times bucolic, dramatic and serene.
