Missing Salmon Alliance Respond to CaBA’s Chalk Stream Restoration Implementation Plan
The CaBa Chalk Stream Restoration Group launched its first Chalk Stream Strategy in 2021, calling for chalk streams in England to be given enhanced environmental status. The strategy was built around the “trinity of ecological health”: water quantity, water quality and habitat quality and included 30+ action recommendations to Defra, the Environment Agency, Natural England, the water companies, NGOs and stakeholders, to rescue our globally important chalk streams and restore them to a near natural state.
Now, in 2022, the group have released their implementation plan.
Image credit: Game Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT)
The MSA recognise that if delivered appropriately, the principles set out in the implementation plan will see a positive effect, but we are urging those involved to keep the pressure on and not allow either the regulators or the water companies to row back on their commitments.
Chalk streams are among the most biodiverse of the UK’s rivers. Nearly all the world’s chalk streams are in England and they represent one of the UK’s most important contributions to global biodiversity. These clear-watered streams are a valuable habitat for Atlantic salmon, sea trout, grayling and lamprey, for otters water voles and kingfishers, for rare invertebrates such as the winterbourne stonefly, and plants like stream water crowfoot.
The Missing Salmon Alliance are advocating for the protection of freshwater environments and the improvement of water quality and quantity in order to reduce losses of salmon in our rivers, coastal waters, and the open ocean.
MSA scientific research and conservation work is taking place on a range of diverse rivers across the UK, including on key chalk stream rivers such as the River Frome (Game Wildlife & Conservation Trust) and the River Test (Fish Legal).
The urgency needed has been highlighted by the River Water Temperature Projection for English chalk streams that was also published by the Environment Agency (25th November 2022).
The EA report concludes: “An important temperature threshold for salmonid egg survival during the winter spawning period of 12°C will likely be exceeded at over 85% of sites by 2080 and adult brown trout will continue to be under threat from high summer temperatures with all sites exceeding that species’ upper critical temperature range of 19.5°C by 2080.”
We are calling for urgent action and will continue to push forward the recommendations in this restoration strategy in order to see wild fish and the wider biodiversity thrive in our chalk streams again.
Stuart Singleton-White, Angling Trust's Head of Campaigns, said: “This is only the first year, so we weren’t expecting miracles. What this report shows is both good progress in places and no progress in others. The political turmoil of the past year has prevented Defra from making the progress needed if the rhetoric and commitments they made when we launched the restoration strategy in 2021 are to be made real. With Minister Pow now returning to her role in Defra, we want to see more progress in the year to come.”
Dylan Roberts, Head of Fisheries for the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust who runs a Salmon and Trout Research Centre of the banks of the River Frome chalkstream in Dorset said “We are now seeing first-hand the damage the changing climate is doing to iconic fish like the Atlantic salmon. In 2021 we published a scientific paper investigating the causes of a crash in the numbers of juvenile salmon in the River Frome in 2016. We concluded that it was the high winter water temperatures and dry cool spring. These problems are exacerbated in light of the huge pressures we are now putting up chalkstreams. Urgent action is needed to ensure chalkstreams are recognised and protected as the rare and precious habitats they are.”
Marsh, J.E., Lauridsen, R.B., Riley, W.D., Simmons, O.M., Artero, C., Scott, L.J., Beaumont, W.R.C., Beaumont, W.A., Davy-Bowker, J., Lecointre, T., Roberts, D.E. & Gregory, S.D. (2021). Warm winters and cool springs negatively influence recruitment of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar L.) in a southern England chalk stream. Journal of Fish Biology, 99,1125-1129. DOI: 10.1111/jfb.14760
As an Alliance of six organisations, we will build on the existing work of our partners and maximise our impact by taking a coordinated approach and vital action in order to halt and reverse the decline of wild Atlantic salmon.
The goal of the Missing Salmon Alliance is to build an evidence-base to influence national and international decision-makers to regulate activities that adversely impact wild Atlantic salmon.
The Missing Salmon Alliance
The MSA is comprised of the following members:
Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, Atlantic Salmon Trust, the Angling Trust with Fish Legal, The Rivers Trust and Fisheries Management Scotland.
https://www.missingsalmonalliance.org