Fish Legal is a non-profit organisation that uses the law to protect the water environment, taking action against polluters and regulators that fail to live up to their responsibilities to preserve British waterways. All of the team are lawyers and passionate environmentalists.
They have successfully fought over 140 legal cases across the country in the last 10 years alone. Since 2000, their legal actions have resulted in over £2million being put towards restoring freshwater habitats.
It’s not often obvious that there is something seriously wrong with a river and the impact can be devastating in ways which aren’t easy to see. Often, it’s anglers who are the first to see these impacts because of the affinity that they have with their waters. They see the changes in fish numbers and river activity before anyone else.
Because of this unique position, anglers serve a vital role in detecting any cause of pollution. Angling clubs, landowners, and fisheries have therefore joined together as members of Fish Legal to collectively provide the resources and funding needed to make legal challenges realistic. Any compensation goes entirely back to them, and they can re-invest it in their waters.
Most recently, Fish Legal has secured a private prosecution of Southern Water for diesel pollution on the River Test, a chalk stream river which sits at the heart of the Orvis brand. You can read more about it on the recent news pages in The Telegraph & Southern Daily Echo.
It’s no surprise that Orvis UK are in full support of Fish Legal’s work, and as a leading fly-fishing brand whose community is centred on anglers upon which Fish Legal depend, we are proud to be supporting them.
Over the last year, we have pledged our support for Fish Legal via events and communications on various channels, gathering our community and spreading the word about their work. We have hosted an auction in our Orvis Stockbridge store, launched the much-anticipated Activist Anglers caps exclusively on our website, all proceeds of which are donated directly to Fish Legal, and we partnered with Go Fishing Worldwide at our latest Orvis Saltwater Fly Fishing Festival to offer people the chance to win a spot on their Bahamas Flats Fly Fishing School worth £3,400, while raising money for Fish Legal. And this is just the beginning.
Aaron Rawling, Managing Director of Orvis UK said “Here at Orvis UK, we care deeply about our environment and are fully committed to supporting organisations like Fish Legal, who stop at nothing to protect our waterways. Their dedication and defence of anglers and fisheries in the face of all types of pollution across the nation is entirely admirable and we are proud to play a part in helping them continue their work. We look forward to continuing to support Fish Legal by fundraising and spreading the word about their work.”