The water companies need to start investing much, much more in conservation, repairing leaks and giving their customers help with getting showers, water-butts, low-flush toilets and so on.”English Nature believes one answer is to store more water in winter, when rainfall is heaviest – in small reservoirs serving individual farms and golf courses or in larger ones built by water-supply companies. The De Lank, Camel and Hull have all been hit by water-company abstractions, while the Blythe has large quantities of water taken from it by British Waterways Board for its canals.Dr Newbold said negotiations to reduce water usage and lessen the environmental damage were under way at about 40 per cent of the worst-affected sites.A friends of the Earth wildlife campaigner, Matt Phillips, said: ”Just this summer the Department of the Environment granted Yorkshire Water a drought order to take extra water from the river Hull.”As water demand continues to rise over the next few decades, there’s going to be a very serious impact on wildlife. ”This summer you could walk across it and hardly get your boots wet You lose the more interesting, unusual flora. For instance sundews, carnivorous plants which trap insects in sticky secretions, have become quite rare on that site.”The general trend on these SSSIs which are drying out is an attrition of the richness of species.”Four rivers which are SSSIs or proposed SSSIs have been affected – the Hull, the Hampshire Avon, the Blythe in Worcestershire and the De Lank, a moorland tributary of the river Camel in Cornwall.These are among the jewels in the crown of England’s rivers, as only 4 per cent of the total riverbank length designated as SSSIs. English Nature said that 89 officially designated Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) were at risk from over-abstraction of water from boreholes sunk into aquifers or direct from rivers.

While water companies were the chief culprits, farmers with spray irrigation, mineral companies, golf courses and fish farms were also to blame.
The sites in question are streams and rivers, lakes, fens and bogs. All have been designated as SSSIs because they have unusual or particularly rich plant and animal life. If the damage continues, some will eventually lose this status.The report is based on a survey of some 160 sites which English Nature judged might be at risk from over-abstraction. It demonstrates that while Britain’s human population escaped a drought this summer, wildlife which depends on wet places is in retreat as the nation’s demand for water slowly but steadily rises.Chris Newbold, English Nature’s senior wetland ecologist, said 18 of the 89 SSSIs had already been harmed by over-abstraction, including four rivers. Water companies were to blame for a dozen of these.He singled out Hatfield Chase, on Humberside, which has been hard hit by farms taking water from boreholes for spray irrigation.”It’s a degraded bog now,” he said. Some of Britain’s best wetland wildlife sites are being damaged because water companies are taking too much from them, a report from the Government’s official nature-conservation arm said yesterday.

Others can be obtained for pounds 5 from Black Raven Publishing, Berkhamsted Castle, HP4 1LJ.. He’s such an idealist.”He added: “The hunt for treasure, once begun, gets a strange hold on you. Always, something draws you on; some lilt and splendour – that pro- spect of a moment of discovery, a moment of triumph.”I thought, well, instead of a hare, my book can be about an heir, and the discerning reader will be drawn by the gleaming lure of whisky.”Mr Henderson wrote to the Prince about his idea and, on learning that malt whisky is the heir’s favourite drink, 109 distilleries donated 1,000 bottles including 1948 Strathisla, 30-year Springbank, 1936 Mortlach and 30-year-old Glenfarclas.Some copies of the book will be given away in bars along the west coast of Scotland. Along the route taken by Bonnie Prince Charlie 250 years ago, they meet a mysterious man, nicknamed Wiggy, who is intended to be the Prince of Wales.Mr Henderson said: “I wanted to show the deeply personal and kindly side of the Prince. If no one finds it by Christ mas 1999, he intends to invite the treasure- seekers to a millennium Hogmanay to drink the lot.
Mr Henderson, a well-known climber, got the inspiration for his hunt from Kit Williams, whose clues to the location of a golden hare in the early 1980s in his book, Masquerade, had Mr Henderson, and hundreds of others, digging up parts of the countryside for years.The book, Chasing Charlie, proceeds from which will go to the Prince’s Scottish Youth Business Trust, involves a group of children and their teacher in a search for the lost Loch Arkaig Treasure, a consignment of gold that vanished in 1746. Richard Henderson has planted clues to the whereabouts of the treasure in a new book about the fictional wanderings of the Prince of Wales.

It’s got shock value, which I think is good.”But, being boring about it, the campaign puts a very negative gloss on what’s supposed to be a very joyful event.”. A Scottish teacher is inviting thousands of people to take part in a treasure-hunt across the Highlands and islands in search of precious golden booty – 1,000 bottles of rare malt whisky, worth at least pounds 30,000. The joke about the Virgin might have offended Catholics, she said. “In some ways I think it’s good just because it’s so different. I hope this ecumenical campaign succeeds,” he said.Dr Ambrose did not think the posters would drive anyone out of the church: “It has to be a concern that it might offend older churchgoers. But as a vicar, you hear the most amazing stories of why people have stayed away from church.”The posters, T-shirt and chasuble transfers will be offered to 40,000 churches across the country this autumn, and the money raised from selling them will be used to buy radio spots and poster sites in public places in December.A spokesman for the Meth-odist Church was worried that young people might be disappointed when they finally went inside an Anglican church: they could find that it was less exciting than the posters had led them to believe.A spokesman for the Catholic Church was surprised to learn that the campaign had been used at all.

“I support the intention of conveying the message to young people who know nothing about the church, that churches are willing and wanting to communicate with them. “Some people have, I suppose, simply been shocked by this year’s [slogan] But they haven’t put into words what their shock is. I suppose it is because we are using this sort of language.”Sources close to the Archbishop of York Dr David Hope, suggested that he was more than shocked. “Incandescent” was one word used of his reaction to the first draft. Dr Hope himself is on holiday and cannot be reached for official comment, but sources close to him suggested he had objected strenuously to the project, and made his objections known to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey. It may also feature on Classic FM radio.
“Our previous campaigns were fairly safe and a bit preachy, too,” said the Rev Tom Ambrose, press officer for the diocese of Ely, and one of the members of the network.