Wild Salmon Strategy Implementation Plan: annual progress report 2025
The third annual progress report under the Scottish wild salmon strategy implementation plan covering progress in 2025.
Theme 1: Improving the condition of rivers and giving salmon free access to cold, clean water (27 actions)
Dashboard Snapshot
6 continuous management actions (i.e. no identified end point)
4 actions completed in previous reporting years
2 actions completed in this reporting year
11 actions in progress
* 4 actions in progress but behind the schedule originally envisaged in the Implementation Plan
Headline Impact
- 28 barriers removed or eased to date across Scotland’s rivers, opening up 1300 kilometres of inaccessible habitat for migratory fish
- 81,000 hectares of peatland restored, including over 15,000 in 2025-26
Key Achievements
- Continued expansion of available habitat through barrier easement and removal
- Progress in peatland restoration, improving water quality and resilience
- Strengthened water resource planning, including new tools and policy development
- Ongoing coordination with partners to deliver catchment-scale improvements
Through removal and easement of barriers to fish migration under Scotland’s River Basin Management Plan (RBMP), 1300 kilometres[1] of previously inaccessible habitat has been opened. The original fish barrier removal and easement programme in RBMP3 covered 244 structures that potentially required action. Since publication, that programme has increased by around 60%, to 388 barriers, in total. To accommodate this increase, SEPA has prioritised work based on the amount of suitable habitat available upstream of each barrier. SEPA is on track to complete assessments, and where necessary, work on 266 fish barriers. Just over half of these barriers have been ruled out as not requiring action, often due to a lack of suitable habitat upstream. By December 2027, SEPA anticipates that 57 barriers will have been removed or eased (including 28 removed or eased to date).
A further 126 will have the need for work confirmed and be at various stages of design and licensing. These will be taken forward in RBMP4, covering 2027 to 2033. Partnership working is key to this, for example, FMS received a grant from the Scottish Government to support work to progress scoping of a number of barriers identified by SEPA as requiring action.
The Peatland ACTION Partnership restored over 15,000 hectares of degraded peatland in 2025-26, the highest annual delivery recorded by the partnership and bringing the total area restored through Peatland ACTION since its launch in 2012 to 81,000 hectares. The Climate Change Plan: 2026-2040 expands and extends the original target to restore 250,000 hectares of degraded peatland by 2030, to 400,000 hectares by 2040. Healthy peatland habitats benefit Atlantic salmon by improving water quality through reduced runoff of fine sediment and dissolved organic carbon, helping to protect spawning gravels. By restoring the water holding capacity of upper catchments, peatland restoration helps to stabilise river flows, increasing resilience to drought.
SEPA launched an improved, accessible Water Scarcity webpage in the spring of 2025. Water resource planning will be a key feature of SEPA’s proposals in the forthcoming consultation on the draft River Basin Management Plan 4 which is due in December 2026.
Scottish Canals delivered its Fish Migration Optioneering Studies report to consider the risks to fish migration across the Scottish canal network. The Delivery Group accepted the completion of this action subject to agreement on the next steps as recorded in the minutes of the Delivery Group’s May 2026 meeting.
The Scottish Government published a review of the operation of the seal licensing system and is now actively progressing action to support the recommendations put forward in the review. These recommendations are aimed at making the licensing process clearer, benefitting salmon conservation by providing an efficient and straightforward process to apply for a licence in instances where seals are posing a conservation threat to wild Atlantic salmon. Additionally, the recommendation to move to year-round licensing ensures that the licensing system is more dynamic and responsive to emerging issues.
Further progress was made through trials on the River Dee of a pioneering new proximity-triggered detect and deter system, which is being developed by the Sea Mammal Research Unit at St Andrews University to help address seal–salmon interactions in rivers.