Over 200 delegates from all over the world travelled to Newcastle-Gateshead last week for the 15 th International Salmonid Conference, the first time the event has ever been held in the UK. The event hosted by the Association of Rivers Trusts (ART), the umbrella environmental charity of the Rivers Trust movement also included the Association’s Annual Awards Dinner and witnessed a significant step forward in the development of the Rivers Trust movement in England & Wales with the launch of a Partnership Agreement with the Environment Agency (EA).

The conference drew scientists and practitioners from North America including Alaska, Russia, Iceland, Scandinavia and EU member states. Sector sponsors included the American Fisheries Society, Trout Unlimited, WWF/HSBC, Environment Agency, Atlantic Salmon Trust, The Fishmongers’ Company, and Union des Terres de Rivieres, EU Interreg IIIC. Generous backing was also given by Greggs the bakers who as well as supporting the conference also provided the packed lunches for the field visits.

Held at the impressive Baltic Centre overlooking the River Tyne with the conference title “Salmonids in the 21 st Century”, speakers and field visits focussed on four themes:

• Post Industrial River Recovery
• Marine & Climate Change
• River Basin Challenges
• Fisheries Management

Speakers on the first two days of the event painted a complex picture and highlighted concerns over salmon survival at sea, habitat degradation and disease including Gyrodactylus Salaris. However there was much to be positive about with the recovery of the Tyne leading a number of post industrial improving rivers in the North of England including the Mersey, together with many smaller improving rivers in Wales.

Presentations from North America were able to contrast management issues relating to pacific salmon and other native species and compare surviving pristine habitat with those impacted by the activities of man. 2006 has just recorded one the highest average summer temperatures on record in the UK, some two degrees above the norm and James Savereide of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game reminded us that even their vast wild salmon stocks are vulnerable to climate change.

With regard to global warming all was not doom and gloom. In the face low summer rainfall, heavy abstraction and increasing temperatures the Spanish representative Juan Antonio Lázaro Menéndez explained how salmon and trout in Asturias not only survive but provide exceptional sport for some 40,000 anglers in this picturesque region of Northern Spain.

The conference field visits taking place on the last two days of the conference were strongly supported by overseas visitors and were hosted by the Tweed Foundation, Eden Rivers Trust and recently formed Tyne Rivers Trust on their respective rivers. Delegates saw salmon and sea trout being tagged for research on the Tweed, the EA’s Kielder hatchery, fish research traps and counter on the Tyne and habitat restoration and use of underwater “ROV” cameras used for education on the Eden.

conference perspective: a summary of its history

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