Countryside Alliance - love the countryside

Following its successful debut in 2009, Cumbria – the  Lake District - is to host its second Fishing Festival in the Spring of 2010. The Festival will run from 15th - 23rd of May, and will feature an expanded range of some fifty angling activities aimed at fishers and non-fishers alike, along with a new online pre-booking and pre-payment system. The festival website with the programme of events can be found at www.cumbriafishingfestival.co.uk

A charity auction held at Forbes of Kingennie on Saturday 27th February has raised £5,000 for Casting for Recovery, the unique fly fishing programme for women who have, or have had, breast cancer.

Countryside Alliance Chief Executive Simon Hart celebrates popular and successful fly fishing programme Casting for Recovery: October is Breast Cancer Awareness month, so it is a good time to update you on the continuing success of Casting for Recovery UK & Ireland, the unique fly fishing programme for ladies who have, or have had, breast cancer. Casting for Recovery (CfR) completed its 2009 programme of retreats last week, ending on a high at the Peacock Hotel in Derbyshire, with fishing on the River Wye on the Haddon Estate. This has been a packed year for the CfR team as they took the programme to Scotland and the Republic of Ireland for the first time and returned to Northern Ireland, Wales and England, so there is a huge sense of achievement.

Countryside Alliance Chief Executive Simon Hart looks at the impact of fish farming on Scotland's ecology and economy: The film The End of the Line, which is based on Charles Clover’s extraordinary book, is attempting with some success to reveal the great ecological disaster man is perpetrating under the sea. A part of Charles’ thesis is that the environmental degradation of modern commercial fishing is out of sight and so out of mind. He uses the image of a huge net being trawled across the African savannah destroying the ecosystem and sweeping animals of all shapes and sizes to their deaths to illustrate just how unacceptable some fishing practices should be.

Fishing for Schools is a Countryside Alliance Foundation initiative. The mission is simple – to educate and enhance young lives. Fishing for Schools aims to get fly-fishing on to the curriculum. The programme specifically offers a short course for children between the ages of 14 and 16 with special educational needs, and can also be adapted for other groups. These children find academic work particularly difficult but respond well to alternative learning. Click here to download the Fishing for Schools leaflet . For more information contact course co-ordinator Charles Jardine at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it