2016 NASCO Annual Meeting

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North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organization (NASCO) Thirty-Third Annual Meeting
Bad Neuenahr – Ahrweiler, Germany
6 – 10 June 2016

A major new initiative entitled the International Year of the Salmon, was announced at the Thirty-Third Annual Meeting of NASCO. The meeting was held June 7 – 10 in Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, Germany.

The initiative aims to improve scientific understanding of the factors driving salmon abundance and improve awareness of the challenges facing the species and the measures taken to mitigate these.

NASCO President Steinar Hermansen (Norway) said:

“We look forward to close collaboration with our colleagues working with salmon in the North Pacific Ocean, the Baltic Sea and the Arctic as we seek to join forces in a concerted effort to conserve and restore these highly valuable species.”

Working with the salmon farming industry in order to ensure wild salmon are protected from genetic and sea lice impacts from salmon farming was a primary focus during a session organised jointly with NASCO’s NGOs. The information presented at the session will contribute to identification of best practice on measures to protect the wild Atlantic salmon.

In the North-East Atlantic, the parasite Gyrodactylus salaris poses a serious risk to wild salmon stocks and measures related to preventing its spread and its eradication from infected rivers will be reviewed by NASCO in order to strengthen protection to the wild salmon.

NASCO’s Annual Meeting again took place against a background of continuing low, and in some areas, critically low abundance of salmon throughout the North Atlantic and the need for urgent action to understand the causal factors.

Progress with an ambitious new research programme to track salmon from their rivers of birth out into the ocean was reported and the expansion of this programme will improve understanding of where salmon mortality is occurring and what is causing it. NASCO has agreed a new classification system for stock status to support the development of a ‘State of the Salmon’ report.

NASCO reviewed the implementation of its regulatory measure for the West Greenland fishery and commended Greenland for the steps it has taken to improve management control in its fishery.

Other Members of the Commission have agreed to review the management of their fisheries. The North American Commission continued to review events in the St Pierre and Miquelon salmon fishery.

NASCO is an intergovernmental organization whose objectives are the conservation, restoration and rational management of wild Atlantic salmon stocks.

The 2016 meeting included almost 115 delegates, including scientists, policy makers and representatives of Inter-Governmental Organisations and Non-Governmental Organisations who met to discuss the present status of wild Atlantic salmon and to consider management issues.

The Thirty-Fourth Annual Meeting of NASCO will be held in Varberg, Sweden, during 6 – 9 June 2017.

source: North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organization