When did Eden Rivers Trust form? 1996

How many people work at your Trust? 16

What are the main issues with rivers in your catchment?

- With 97% of land in the catchment classed as agricultural and the main West Coast train line and the M6 running through our area, diffuse pollution is a major issue. An emerging trend of primary crops being grown for use in anaerobic digesters instead of for food on steep, sandy soils is adding to this issue.

- The Eden catchment enjoys dramatic scenery – it is flanked by the Pennines, Westmorland Dales and Lake District fells, but it also gets a lot of rain falling on these fells each year. This can overwhelm our river system, resulting in flooding, which, as seen during Storm Desmond, can have a devastating effect on downstream communities such as Carlisle, Appleby and Glenridding.

Are there any particular rivers keeping you up at night and why?

The smaller becks that aren’t covered by SSSI / SAC classification are always a concern as they have less oversight.

Why are these your favourite photos of the year?

10,000 has been a magic number for us this year:

It’s the number of visitors who saw our Heritage Lottery Funded Eden Rivers Wonder World exhibition, created in partnership with Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery. This photo shows the awesome Litter Monster, an installation created for the exhibition by three local primary schools working with artists to explore the issues around plastic pollution and send a message to all to not give in to their ‘inner litter monster’.

It’s also the number of trees we’ve planted over the last few weeks as part of The BIG Eden Tree Plant – volunteers have turned out in droves to get digging and do their bit to help, from first-time and regular volunteers to companies and other organisations.

The number of hectares now covered by our two Facilitation Fund farmers groups.

What key issue or project will you be hoping to tackle in 2019?

We’re looking forward to the finalisation of the Eden Catchment Management Plan so we can identify more accurately where the hotspots are and apply for funding to undertake even more work. NFM continues to be a key focus – installing measures that demonstrate improvements locally that we can scale up to catchment size!

Any Christmas wishes or New Year’s resolutions for the Trust this year?

Alasdair Brock, Head of Conservation’s Christmas wish … a Pork and Apple pie from Cranstons (fine food purveyor in Penrith).

Visit Eden Rivers Trust's website.