Countryside Alliance - love the countryside

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

Countryside Alliance Chief Executive Simon Hart reports on a positive angling initiative being pioneered by the Countryside Alliance Foundation: The Countryside Alliance Foundation was set up last year to build on the element of Alliance work that has always been inherently charitable. This includes persuading, educating and informing the public about the countryside and helping to protect the natural environment. One of the most important projects the Foundation is running is 'Fishing for schools' which gets fly fishing on to the school curriculum. The main target group for the project is children between the ages of 14 and 16 with special educational needs. The aim is to teach young people the skills of fly-fishing and in doing so explore and enjoy other areas within the natural world.

On Monday 29th June 2009 the Irish Independent published a feature on the recent Casting for Recovery retreat at the Mount Falcon hotel and fishery, County Mayo. The feature is about the first ever retreat in the Republic of Ireland, lets the lady participants speak for themselves and reveals why CfR's brand of therapy is so necessary. In the words of one participant: "....on the retreat, there was one woman who mentioned that it had been 20 years since she had had cancer and at that moment, I could feel my shoulders relax. You think, OK, this isn't a death sentence and it isn't necessarily going to come back. I suppose I hadn't realised just how heavily that had been weighing on me." Read "Real Life: Hooked on fishing therapy" by Liz Kearney.

Award winning environmental journalist Charles Clover writes: “Fast approaching is the theatrical release of The End of the Line, the documentary feature based on my book about the global problem of over-fishing, with screenings at more than 50 Vue cinemas on 8th June, World Oceans Day.

“On that day, I will be doing a Question and Answer session after the screening at Islington Vue (tickets available now at www.endoftheline.com). If you are unable to get hold of tickets for that screening I will be conducting a Q&A on 12th June in London at Odeon Panton St, for which tickets will be available soon. Rupert Murray, the director, will be in Fulham on June 8th. Alternatively, why not choose a screening near you and ask your friends to come along?

“The state of our oceans is pretty dire, with fish stocks due to collapse almost everywhere some time around the middle of this century, but it’s not too late. There are things we can do to reverse the damage we’re causing. The first step on the way to restoring our oceans is to watch the movie.”