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Forest bikes, formerly named HumanForest, has added a fleet of new e-bikes to its app to meet a rise in demand for its service this summer – and to raise awareness for wider environmental issues.
Named River, and easily spotted by their bright blue colour, the company wants to use the pop-up to draw attention to the state of the UK’s waterways and raise money to help restore them.
To support this, 5% of revenue from rides will go to The Rivers Trust’s ‘Corridors Advocacy Campaign’, which aims to create wildlife corridors along all rivers in the UK.
Wildlife corridors are integral to providing shelter, food and habitat for wildlife, whilst also helping improve the quality of water in our rivers.
Laura Elms, Forest’s head of sustainability, said: “According to the Environment Agency, not a single river in England can be classed as being ‘in good health’.
“Rivers are the lifeblood of all strong and healthy ecosystems. We want to use our Forest bikes to support the UK’s rivers. We hope this partnership will draw attention to the state of the UK’s waterways and raise money to help restore them.
“The Rivers Trust is doing valuable work to build biodiversity nationwide and Forest is pleased to be able to connect our users to a mission we truly support.”
River e-bikes will be available to rent via the Forest app until the end of the year, after which they will be fully rebranded in Forest livery.
The same pricing structure of ten minutes free daily and 0.19p per minute will be applied to River e-bikes. The River e-bikes are the same make and model as the Forest e-bikes.
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Alex Adam, deputy director strategy & stewardship at The Rivers Trust, said: “The race to climate resilience and water security will be won or lost on our rivers – and right now we are losing, only 14% are in good ecological health and every single one fails to meet chemical standards.
“Although the issues are complex, many of the solutions are simple and mostly nature based, creating a network of wildlife corridors along all our rivers , with the multiple benefits is one of these. But to make this vision become a reality is going to take a lot of work, which is why we’re so thankful for the support from the Forest team and their new River bikes”
