Atlantic Salmon Federation: Making Conservation a Tradition
© Nick Hawkins
The Atlantic Salmon Federation stands as one of the world’s oldest and most prestigious science and advocacy organizations dedicated to conserving and restoring the populations of wild Atlantic Salmon. Their headquarters in New Brunswick, Canada, oversee a network of seven state and provincial councils, one hundred and three affiliated groups and a total of more than twenty-five thousand members and volunteers.
The Atlantic Salmon Federation conducts their research on wild Salmon throughout the North Atlantic, perform complex river restoration projects and advocate for good environmental decisions. On the global stage, the Atlantic Salmon Federation directs its expertise to negotiate conservation agreements with commercial fishermen in places like Greenland and the Faroe Islands.
Moreover, their reach extends to some of the most prominent forums on aquatic conservation such as the North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organization and the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea.
© Nick Hawkins
Yet it’s the longevity of the Atlantic Salmon Federation that makes their contributions to the Salmon School project so valuable. Their place in a long lasting lineage of institutions set out to protect and preserve Salmon traces all the way back to 1948. Percy Erskine Nobbs, a noted Architect, formed the Atlantic Salmon Association and, shortly after, saw the foundation of the Atlantic Salmon Journal, which next year celebrates its 70th anniversary.
© Nick Hawkins
But the ASF aren’t limited to the theoretical. Their work in conserving and restoring some of the most important habitat in rivers, streams, ponds, and lakes demands tactical employment of resources. Whether it be the manual deconstruction of man-made barriers to migration, some numbering in the hundreds of years old, or the eradication of invasive species, the Atlantic Salmon Federation has been hard at work for decades now.
One such example of their cross-community work can be seen in the Maine Headwaters Restoration Project, which can be viewed in the video below. Since 2000 the Atlantic Salmon Federation have successfully removed over 40 barriers to fish passage and opened hundreds of miles, and thousands of acres, of freshwater habitat. Their work has seen a slow, but monumental increase in the quantity of sea-run fish making their way inland.
As an Alliance of five organisations, we will build on the existing work of our partners and maximise our impact by taking a coordinated approach and vital action in order to halt and reverse the decline of wild Atlantic salmon.
The goal of the Missing Salmon Alliance is to build an evidence-base to influence national and international decision-makers to regulate activities that adversely impact wild Atlantic salmon.
The Missing Salmon Alliance
The MSA is comprised of the following members:
Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, Atlantic Salmon Trust, the Angling Trust with Fish Legal, The Rivers Trust and Fisheries Management Scotland.
https://www.missingsalmonalliance.org