Thread by @lucysiegle

Hmm as @DefraGovUK appears to have hastily deleted this video featuring @theresecoffey hanging at the banks of the dying #riverwye let me describe to you what I saw and why it's a bigger scandal than the wrong type of otter footage. 🧵

https://twitter.com/MarkAvery/status/1670312093285851137

In the opening shot our Environment Secretary who has previously blamed wild birds for the state of the water quality in catchments elsewhere, looks sadly but sternly at camera and announces that sadly the river wye is quite fucked, or at least she concedes...

that @NaturalEngland has found a few problems, before seemingly specifying that these are confined to SSSIs (sites of special scientific interest) or similar. Anyone with a passing interest in ecosystem health will likely know that it is much more fucked than that...

Cue the first of a number of lavish shots of otters frolicking presumably to give impression that it's not all bad news and look how resilient nature is! Sadly as others have pointed out, this is footage of large Sea Otters who must've taken a very wrong turn indeed. Now we are..

treated to a succession of sappy department leaders from @EnvAgency who waffle on about 'challenges' and 'balancing' the needs to produce food AT CHEAP PRICES PROMISED BY BREXIT and getting the amount of phosphates just exactly right which is such a crazy narrative that....

when the next Sea Otter segments appears with otters absolutely loving life in the dying and dead River Wye that seems positively normal. Potatoes are mentioned as a suspect food source that may be acting against the River Wye's continuing success...eggs? not so many mentions.

And that's so weird because it's pretty clear that one of the main tragedies of the river wye has been this administration's decision to ramp up broiler units along its banks without keeping a record of permits. The excellent @rivercide_live doc investigates this in detail.

This combined with the #sewagecrisis which is itself a symptom of allowing water companies to siphon incredible sums of money out of our system while dumping shit in our rivers and seas means has killed off and will kill off the rivers that inspired Tennyson and Wordsworth....

These decisions made for political gain (including by the way defunding @EnvAgency ) have wrecked rivers for anglers, fisheries, wild swimmers, canoeists, boaters and ultimately for farmers as well as the population at large but never mind....

cut to footage of sea otters frolicking in the river wye which is facing challenges but.... I miss this film already. It had an Adam Curtis dystopian quality but also serves as a huge red light for 'climate disaster comms'. It was certainly audacious...

Selling the corporate challenges of keeping food prices low when we can actually see the shit in our rivers & shelves empty of eggs (even killing the river wye hasn't driven the cost of egg production low enough to be 'affordable' to UK supermarkets) is some smoke and mirrors.

The inclusion of the sea otters is probably the most believable bit of this much missed video. To take action on the disgusting state of our waterways please visit @sascampaigns @RiverActionUK @GoodLawProject @WindrushWasp @CleanIlkley The @IOSF protects otters (inc sea otters).