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00:00I'm Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and I'm backing I's Save Britain's Rivers campaign.
00:04I'm standing on the banks of the River Wye in North Herefordshire.
00:08I'm here with the Green Party candidate Ellie Chown today.
00:11This is a particularly depleted river.
00:13It's got a big problem for agricultural runoff from the intensive chicken industry.
00:18It looks pretty benign today on this lovely sunny day,
00:20but there should be a lot more life than we're seeing in this river.
00:23I actually think our incredible network of British rivers is a beautiful resource
00:27that everyone should be able to enjoy.
00:29Swim groups all around Britain go down to the edge of a river
00:32with scientific equipment to measure the pollution
00:34and then decide whether they're going to have a swim or not.
00:36And more often than not, they decide they'd rather not.
00:39That is an appalling state of affairs
00:41and the government's done absolutely nothing to put it right.
00:44But it's really great to hear that the I is campaigning on this
00:47and I'm really pleased to be supporting them alongside the Green Party.
00:51The fact that we've got a nice low reading today
00:53doesn't mean that the problems of the Wye are solved,
00:54it just means that it hasn't rained for a few days
00:57and so that regular runoff of animal material into the river has not occurred.
01:05This river should be exploding with life at this time of the year
01:08and it's not happening because the damage that's been done here is long-term.