The below article quoted from today's Liverpool Daily Post:

Gold panners want licence scheme to protect rivers in North Wales - North Wales News - News - Daily Post North Wales

GOLD panners want licences issued for people who want to prospect for the precious metal in North Wales.

The British Gold Panning Association has met with governing officials in Dolgellau to try and establish measures to protect Gwynedd rivers from destruction.
Prospectors are being warned they could face unlimited fines or lengthy jail sentences if they try to search for the precious metal.
It comes after a prospector sparked outrage when, struck by gold fever, he removed tonnes of bedrock from the Afon Mawddach.

The river is a Site of Special Scientific Interest and a Special Conservation Area. Eventually officers from EAW and CCW discovered laws protecting wildlife such as moss, fish and freshwater mussels were being breached.
The Countryside Council for Wales has now posted signs along the banks of the two most popular rivers where gold is found – the Afon Wen and Afon Mawddach.
They’re warning prospectors that they “may” be breaking the law if they panned in those areas.

At a meeting this week, BGPA representatives Vince Thurkettle from Norfolk and fellow prospector Kit Andrews from Hereford, expressed their concerns at being “tarred with the same brush” as unscrupulous diggers.
They met officials from the Countryside Council for Wales, the Environment Agency Wales and Forestry Commission Wales to discuss whether panning could be regulated to protect rivers yet let them continue their hobby.
“You get people poaching for fish but you don’t ban all fishermen,” said Mr Thurkettle, a full-time gold panner and former president of the World Gold Panning Association.
“But there is a responsible body of panners and we want to persuade the authorities to work with us.
“People have been panning these rivers for 160 years. In Scotland there are restrictions on the time you can spend on a river and the equipment you can use, Wales is the only place that doesn’t have any regulations.
It was a good meeting. The authorities laid their cards on the table and invited us to come back with a proposal.”

Regular prospector, Mike Jones (pictured), 61, from Denbigh, agrees more regulation is needed but finds some CCW claims difficult to believe.
“I’ve been digging for 40 years in the whole river system and I’ve never seen a freshwater mussel yet,” he said.



Panners use shovels and hand operated pumps to remove gravel and expose the bedrock of a river where the heavy metals are found.
The traditional pan is used to wash away larger stones and gravel leaving fine sediments, heavy metals such as lead and occasionally flakes or nuggets of gold.

The EAW concerns centre around the disturbance of gravel where salmon and trout have laid their eggs.
Their spokeswoman said: “There is no ban as such, only the understanding as with any other activity that they risk prosecution if they contravene any of these acts.
“Gold panning has occurred in these areas for many years. However new techniques – such as suction dredging, use of sluices, excavators, increased volume of people involved – have changed its nature.
“You would also find regulations to control gold panning are put in place by the landowner not regulatory bodies.
“From past evidence of any kind of work in a river involving excavation or moving sediments, effects include an increase in turbidity and release of metals or sediments which could smother fish eggs.”

A spokesman for CCW said consent to pan for gold would have to be given to landowners as prospectors had “no entitlement. The landowner would be responsible for ensuring that the conditions are complied with.”

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Save the softmouth trout

It's a pity that the CCW and EAW can't seem to work up the same enthusiasm for dealing with trespassing canoeists disrupting redds. I'm also not too sure of the status of the freshwater mussel population in the headwaters of those Welsh rivers.

In an interesting and possibly related development in North Wales, a local club has just had a lease held for 40 years cancelled by the Forestry Commission on the pretext of a possible hydro electric scheme although the FC do not own both banks.

Some believe that the fanatical canoeists within the FC may have something to do with this and investigations are ongoing. The upshot is that a ground-breaking and well advanced proposal to allow canoeists an access agreement to the same river may well now be put on hold or even scrapped.

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“There is no more lovely country than Monmouthshire in early spring. Nowhere do the larks sing quite so passionately, as if somehow inspired by the Welsh themselves. There is a blackbird on every thorn and a cock chaffinch, a twink as they call him there, on every bush...... It moved me profoundly. I had been spared to see another spring, and I thank God for it.”

Oliver Kite
“A Spring Day on the Usk”
A Fisherman’s Diary

I know sewinbasher, disheartening isn't it? Yet we pay all the licence fees.

From an earlier article on the same river; CCW even have a regular North Wales Police force officer, Det Sgt actually, on secondment:

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Save the softmouth trout

Afon Eden, tributary of the river Mawddach that joins the main river in the Village of Ganllwyd.
Afon Eden – Cors Goch Trawsfynydd - Special Area of Conservation - SAC - Habitats Directive
Apparently canoeists are using the area as a get on point!

Before the EA started using self release ponds salmon and seatrout fry were released into the Afon Wen . Interestingly The Forestry Commission are the landowners on the Wen!

There was an item about this on the Welsh news last night.


BBC News - Gold pan ban on rivers in Gwynedd

Members here may be interested to learn the facts from a registered national charity, Gold Rivers Trust.

Mike Jones, featured in this thread is a great prospector and he is absolutely right about the absence of freshwater pearl mussels on the Mawddach and Wen. The Countryside Council for Wales Management plan for the Eden catchment, which includes the Mawddach and Wen (link below) states the following 'The river contains the last known population of freshwater pearl mussels surviving in Wales, they are almost entirely confined to one section of the river. Historically the mussels were more widespread in the catchment. The mussels rely on salmonid parr hosting, for a short period of time, the glochidial larvae of the mussels on their gills, so the success of migratory and spawning fish in the catchment is crucial to their long term survival.' This official report makes it clear that mussels survive in the Eden only, not the Mawddach or Wen. Alarmingly, CCW ignored this report and claimed that panners had actually killed mussels on the Mawddach and Wen. When I repeatedly asked CCW to justify this misinformation last year I received no reply.

Afon Eden to Cors Goch Trawsfynydd SAC - Countryside Council for Wales

The Mawddach and Wen are neither suited to nor habitat to any endangered species, due to the fluctuating ph levels and the regular spates and floods which strip the gravels and bedrock. The idea that fish could happily spawn and hatch in this steep river valley defies belief. The Wen is locally known as the 'White River', due to the flood hammered and softened bedrock. It is strewn with massive boulders, and clear felling of close pine forest is not condusive to fish breeding conditions. There is no data on the CCW website about where salmon and trout spawn, but it is fairly logical to conclude that effective spawning occurs in the various tributaries in the higher reaches, near the Rhobell Fawr volcano, where the gradient is level and not subject to fast scouring. Having misled the press, BBC and panners that a few individuals had damaged mussel, fish and otter habitats, CCW is now retreating. CCW officers are no longer relying upon the endangered species argument, they merely plead with panners not to disturb fish eggs. However, there is no evidence for the presence of fish eggs in the lower Mawddach and Wen. If CCW cannot accurately advise panners or other recreational users of these rivers about basic eco facts, how can they justify the virtual ban on panning? Organisor of General Confusion appears to be a job description for the head of CCW, the Forestry Commission Wales and the Environment Agency Wales. Wildly exaggerated reports have become widespread across BBC broadcasts, local press and many forums like these. For instance, there is a totally ludicrous report that one panner removed tonnes of bedrock from the Afon Mawddach over many weeks and months. The idea that one panner could conduct such an operation alone, then get away with it unobserved by CCW and all other agencies, as well as other panners, locals and police is bizzare. Why was there no prosecution? If CCW allowed this to go on their chief should be sacked. If it didn't happen and CCW is guilty of misleading police and the public, same result surely? The plethora of misleading reports has to stop. Various interest groups should take stock and stop wasting police time and spending public money. If ecological interests are to be protected, honesty should prevail. Gold Rivers Trust has the solution.
For many years gold panners have been tolerated in the Coed y Brenin. A few, like Vince Thurkettle and Kit Andrews have been running expensive courses for groups on CROW access land, in breach of Schedule 2 of the CROW Act itself, which prohibits commercial activities. CCW should simply enforce Schedule 2, avoiding the need for hype and false data about mussels, otters, fish eggs and other such rubbish.
Gold Rivers Trust would argue for gold panning to be limited to charitable, educational and scientific purposes, for instance geological studies for school parties. Goldpanning if properly controlled in this way can be a force for good, living alongside fishing and ecology interests. Gold Rivers Trust is prepared to meet with CCW, Forestry Commission and Environmental Agency officers in order to help set up a better management scheme for goldpanning, to raise funds for the local economy. However, the British Goldpanners Association should be banned from activities in North Wales, as its members prospect for gold purely for personal profit. Gold fever in the National Parks needs to be cured.
Thank you for listening to my argument in favour of a balance between eco-protection and the local economy.
Brian Wright
Treasurer Gold Rivers Trust