North Atlantic Salmon Fund (NI)

Public benefits

Scientists have become increasingly worried about the scale and speed of the decline in ocean abundance of Atlantic salmon. For some juvenile salmon populations survival rates at sea have struggled to reach eight per cent and at times have dipped to five per cent. Losing 95 per cent of a river's output at sea is unprecedented, and indicates

problems which are impairing the salmons' ability to feed and grow. The public benefit that accrues from our activity is the conservation of the wild Atlantic salmon, in particular in the northern part of Ireland. We have been involved in the cessation of netting of some fifty salmon nets, working in conjunction with Government, thereby helping to reduce the decline in numbers of wild Atlantic salmon. We hope that this will help create conditions whereby the numbers may once again recover to the previously stable and numerous populations, and promoting sustainability of the salmon for future generations. The public benefit flowing from advancing education is that the public are more aware of the need to safeguard the salmon, creating more knowledge and understanding of the issues arising from lack of conservation and helping to increase the number of people becoming involved in conservation. Our activities are focused on the need to make people aware of the current need to protect and conserve salmon in all it’s life stages, and to protect the environments which host the fish. In addition the promotion of study and research, and the provision of facilities for this, will increase awareness of the problems and possible solutions involved, as these can be counter intuitive and complex in nature. This will contribute to our primary goal of salmon conservation. These benefits will be evidenced in the long term by the numbers of wild salmon stabilising or increasing, and an improvement in the quality of the environments hosting the fish, mostly in the freshwater phase of its life cycle. The improved behaviour of the public in respect of the fish and its environment will demonstrate the increased awareness of the people of the need to protect and conserve not only the fish itself, but the habitats on which it depends. The continued commitment of Government and other agencies to supporting the research infrastructure necessary to monitor and improve salmon stocks will be evidence of the success or otherwise of our efforts to promote study and research in the field. We believe that there will be no harm arising from our purposes. The Charity’s beneficiaries are the public in general by becoming more aware of the need to conserve the salmon population and by benefiting from the preservation of a local species. A private benefit flowing from this purpose is that gained by a person that has rights to a salmon netting facility when our organisation contributes to the acquisition of that facility for the purpose of eliminating the killing by netting of the fish. This contributes to the achievement of conservation by heightening awareness of the benefits of conservation and the interconnected nature of the relationship between healthy fish populations and all the other activities flowing from them. There are health benefits as a result of the encouragement of people to take part in the physical effort of fishing and also the mental benefits of a quiet contemplative activity, with reduced levels of stress and anxiety, often supported by involvement in the administrative element of the sport. There are also related benefits such a rural development as a result of salmon sport fishing and tourism. This is necessary for the achievement of the objectives of the organisation and therefore the private benefit is incidental and is outweighed by the resulting contribution to the conservation of the species. As our trustees and volunteers are not paid we do not believe there is any conflict of interest.

What your organisation does

Our activities include any aspect of the protection and conservation of the wild Atlantic salmon which includes trying to positively influence a wide variation in activities associated with waterways and the sea which can be detrimental to the survival and conservation of the species.