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The Dzelzupe is a 10-kilometre-long right-bank tributary of the Stende in Talsi county. In cleaning up the river, local resident Gatis Štrauss has proved that even one person is capable of bringing about positive change in a short space of time.
There is a good reason for the saying that if a river babbles and you can hear it, it is alive. One of Gatis's undertakings is placing stones in the little river, which creates fast-flowing stretches.
“These ones are mine, that big one too, that one's mine, well, all those big ones that have been put in place. Before that it was shallow and bare here,” Gatis said, showing Vides fakti what he had achieved.
He explained that the stones had been laid gradually so as not to block the river: “Oxygen is produced, and the fish have somewhere to pause behind the stones, because a small hollow is washed out there and they can stop in the current and rest.”