The river, and its water voles, are thought to have inspired author Kenneth Grahame's character Ratty and his book The Wind in the Willows.

[4] The Berks, Bucks and Oxon Wildlife Trust owns a nature reserve straddling the Pang at Moor Copse, close to the village of Tidmarsh.

A 29 ha (72-acre) extension to the nature reserve, in the area that is believed to have inspired Kenneth Grahame's work, was purchased in December 2006.

[5] In August 2007 a coalition of the WWF, the National Trust, the RSPB and others[6] called on the British government to adopt their Blueprint for Water.

To publicize their campaign they highlighted the dangers to sites well known through literature such as The Lake District (Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons and Beatrix Potter's Mrs Tiggy-Winkle), the North Kent Marshes (Charles Dickens's Great Expectations) and the River Pang.