We're becoming 'Friends of the River Wye'

1 February 2024

We’re delighted to announce that Friends of the Lower Wye and Friends of the Upper Wye have joined together to become ‘Friends of the River Wye’.

Of course, in spirit, we have always been friends of the whole river. When we formed FOUW, it was because the idea of running a citizen science project, arts and events across the whole catchment was just too vast an endeavour for a small group of volunteers clustered in the upper reaches. We were thrilled when FOLW set up to replicate our activities downstream.

There has always been close cooperation between the groups. Our citizen scientists have always used the same kit and methodology and their collective results are already viewable on the same data platform, WyeViz, created by our brilliant trustee Michael Carpenter. 

We believe we’re much stronger together covering the whole catchment, speaking with one voice, and hope this merger increases our strategic influence, whilst making it easier for other bodies to communicate with us. 

As FOUW is already a registered charity, we will be continuing under this charity number, but have added the working name ‘Friends of the River Wye’.

Mike Dunsbee and Nick Day, founders of FOLW, have joined the charity as trustees.

We will soon launch a new website - www.friendsoftheriverwye.org.uk - to represent our activities and merge our mailing lists together, so that everyone will hear from Friends of the River Wye in the near future. Our social media accounts will also be running with the new name soon.