The Angling Trust has warmly welcomed Environment Minister Richard Benyon’s announcement today that the sale of five invasive non-native aquatic plant species is to be banned to protect the water environment. Angling’s representative body has called for such a ban on several occasions in the past four years, in partnership with other organisations such as the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust.
These foreign invaders have caused huge damage to coarse and game fisheries in rivers, canals and lakes because they smother the water surface preventing light getting into the water. When they die and rot, they suck oxygen out of the water which can lead to fish kills and a decline in invertebrate numbers. Managing the rapid spread of these species costs the taxpayer billions of pounds each year – money which would be better spent tackling pollution, over-abstraction and barriers to coarse and game fish migration.
They have been sold in garden centres for decades and have escaped from garden ponds through flooding and when people have cleared out their ponds without understanding the damage that they can do. By banning them, the risk of outbreaks will be greatly reduced.
Mark Lloyd, Chief Executive of the Angling Trust & Fish Legal said: “This is very welcome news and a strong decision from a Minister who has demonstrated that he has a good understanding of the issues affecting the water environment and in particular non-native invasive species.
“Other island nations around the world take biosecurity very seriously and the sale of these plants has gone on far too long. We urge all gardeners who have any of these species in their ponds to remove and destroy them.”
