International Year of the Salmon

by Tim Plowden, 17 May 2019

The International Year of the Salmon (IYS) is a project launched by North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission (NPAFC) and the North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organization (NASCO) and other partners. The IYS focal year will be 2019, with projects and activities starting in 2018 and continuing into 2022.

Salmon and people are being inundated with surprises from increasingly uncertain social and natural environments. The International Year of the Salmon is a call to action for all order of governments including indigenous peoples, businesses, NGO’s, academia and individuals to lend support including actions or donations.

My humble contribution started in 2018 prior to the launch of IYS. I was initially approached by the North Pacific organisers in Canada to see if they could screen my video, The Return of the Salmon at their launch event in Vancouver.

IYS in Canada then asked me to judge a photo contest and to contribute clips to their outreach video. This led to North Atlantic IYS organisers in Scotland to contact me about contributing to their outreach video narrated by Sir David Attenborough. Having grown up watching Attenborough’s documentaries on the BBC, it’s thrilling to hear him convey the conservation message over my footage.

The salmon is the king of fish. Their journeys up rivers are some of the most thrilling spectacles in the natural world. And yet now their very survival is at risk.

To respond effectively in order to sustain salmon and people we need to rapidly share what we know, collaborate on understanding what we need to know and stand connected to work together when the totally unexpected hits us which it does with great regularity now.

You can learn more about the IYS on the IYS website.