Wild salmon strategy: implementation plan 2023 to 2028

Wider context

Due to the range of factors influencing salmon survival over its complex life-cycle this Plan includes multi-sectoral action across a range of geographic scales and involving a broad suite of policy levers and resources.

While survival of salmon at sea appears to be a major factor in salmon population trends across the North Atlantic, our relative understanding of pressures and ability to take action is greater within river catchments and nearshore coastal environments. Coordinated interventions at a river catchment scale that aim to optimise the number and quality of healthy, naturally produced salmon smolts leaving Scottish rivers and coasts are the critical basis to achieving our objectives. Therefore, the balance of interventions is in favour of those that can be applied within river catchments whilst attention is also given to mitigating pressures from developments around Scotland's coasts.

Of central importance to this Plan, the draft Scottish Biodiversity Strategy to 2045 sets out a clear ambition: for Scotland to be Nature Positive by 2030, and to have restored and regenerated biodiversity across the country by 2045. Priority actions to realise this ambition will focus on accelerating nature restoration, expanding and improving protected areas, supporting nature-friendly farming, fishing and forestry, recovering vulnerable species, and are based on the principle of tackling the nature and climate emergencies together.

The draft Biodiversity Strategy provides a vital new context and urgency for our work on salmon recovery and places an emphasis on catchment scale restoration to improve the ecological status of rivers and the species they support.

Further strategic focus is provided by A Blue Economy Vision for Scotland, which states that 'by 2045 Scotland's shared stewardship of our marine environment supports ecosystem health, improved livelihoods, economic prosperity, social inclusion and wellbeing.' This means marine, and inter-linked freshwater and coastal environments are restored, adapted and resilient to climate change and sustainably managed to achieve good environmental status.

There are wider linkages to land use within river catchments. This is evident for example in the inclusion of actions in Scotland's Forestry Strategy Implementation Plan on riparian (riverbank) management to improve the climate resilience of rivers; a vital step to maintain water temperature at low enough levels for salmon to thrive. This will be supported by a newly developed riparian woodland grant under proposals to enhance the Forestry Grant Scheme. Maps developed by Marine Scotland scientists showing where rivers are most at risk from high summer temperatures, and where riparian planting will result in greatest benefit, will inform the enhanced Scheme.