Salmon School is an extraordinarily beautiful art installation by renowned artist Joseph Rossano, comprising over 300 salmon sculpted from mirrored glass. Salmon School featured at the UNFCCC COP26 in Glasgow in recognition that our iconic wild salmon are on a path to extinction. Learn more about salmon school.
Working with The Missing Salmon Alliance and a global collective of salmon conservation organisations, The Clyde River Foundation, Missing Salmon Alliance and Salmon School has developed and launched a youth-based citizen science project on the River Clyde in collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC. Pupils from 26 Primary Schools learned about the lifecycle of salmon and collected eDNA samples to understand what was living in their nearby rivers.
The Clyde, and the return of the salmon, stand testament to what can be done. How, given the political will, we can listen to the warnings from science, most clearly set out in the IPCC Report, and change direction.
Why did we take Salmon School to COP26?
The twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss are creating conditions that threaten the very existence of our wild salmon. However, we have time to make a difference if we take decisive action now.
Salmon need free access to cold clean water. The Missing Salmon Alliance’s members and partners are uniquely placed to make a real difference. But if wild salmon are to be safeguarded action is needed at significantly more pace and scale. We are determined that our presence at COP26 will deliver this step change.
We must redouble efforts to:
- protect freshwater habitats, such as addressing barriers to migration and providing shade from native trees;
- improve water quantity and quality, such as tackling over-abstraction and low flows in our rivers, preventing pollution from sewage and agricultural run-off, and restoring habitats that support better water quality;
- reduce losses of salmon in our rivers, coastal waters, and the open ocean, such as addressing the impacts on wild salmon of fish farming, predation, and by-catch of wild salmon in commercial fishing.
Now is the time to take urgent decisive action to save our wild salmon.