When the water company executive arrived, John Barker presented him with a bucket of dead fish. It was September 2020. Barker was furious. The fish came from the River Ems, which winds for six miles from Stoughton, West Sussex, to Chichester Harbour.
Barker, 68, a retired environmental campaigner, owns a sustainable farm in the village of Westbourne. The Ems flows through it. Barker prizes it because it is one of only 200 chalk streams in the world. Shallow and clear, the streams rise from chalk aquifers and springs, and are beloved by many – 85% of the world’s chalk streams are in England.
