The new president of the ASF talks salmon, climate change, and Greenland expansion.
The Atlantic Salmon Federation (ASF) announced Nathan Wilbur is taking over as its new president earlier this month.
Wilbur started at the ASF in 2015 as New Brunswick Program Director. He went on to become the organization’s Vice President of Regional Programs for Quebec and Atlantic Canada.
“I’m really excited to get going,” said Wilbur. “We have an amazing team of directors and staff at ASF and we’re more capable now than we ever have been.”
“I met with the regional council presidents this week to reiterate my priority to maintain a united federation,” said Wilbur on his way back from a meeting in Quebec.
The ASF, headquartered in Chamcook, is an association of nearly 25,000 members and volunteers with over 75 years of experience fighting to protect wild Atlantic salmon. To do that they conduct research, and advocate for habitat rehabilitation through projects like the one being undertaken in Maine to remove the dams limiting the ability of the Atlantic salmon to migrate upstream.
“We spend a lot of time discussing the key issues like climate change and landscape protections to ensure cold water, barrier removal, which we have a huge focus on barrier removal throughout the range of salmon.”
He said opening up those areas of rivers is critical to the survival of the salmon because it gives them access to colder, and more climate change resilient parts of the river.
“Our relationship with our Maine council and other conservation organizations in Maine is stronger than ever,” said Wilbur.
Much like the weather, wildlife gives little regard to borders or Presidents. As funding for climate science south of the border gets cut, putting Canadian weather forecasting in peril, he said the ASF is now struggling to find the money from the federal government to conduct dam removal projects in Maine.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
In so many words, what is the purpose of the ASF today?
The Atlantic Salmon Federation (ASF), it’s a really unique organization. We’re international so we operate in both the Northeast United States and all across Eastern Canada. We have about 40 staff spread throughout Maine and Eastern Canada. We have a lot of partnerships with other NGOs throughout the North Atlantic and other countries that have Atlantic salmon. We often partner with a collection of grassroots organizations. We’re affiliated with five regional salmon councils. Each of the five Eastern Canadian provinces has a salmon council and so does Maine. Each of those councils have a seat on our board to bring the grassroots perspectives to the organization. And then another step further from that, there are over a hundred local watershed organizations that are also part of the Federation. So we’re really spread out, we cover all levels. And of course we partner a lot outside of that Federation family with government agencies, Indigenous organizations and, and other larger NGOs, both nationally and internationally. Atlantic salmon is an international fish and it takes international cooperation and coordination to make a difference for the species.
What is the single biggest threat to the Atlantic salmon today?
Climate change is really a big driver for Atlantic salmon and it manifests in so many different ways from warming river water temperatures to changing marine conditions. Atlantic salmon migrate all the way up to the North Atlantic to Greenland as part of their life cycle. So they travel thousands of kilometers and along the way, they’re susceptible to so many different pressures. Some climate change related, some not, but climate change is really the major driver right now.
What is your favourite river in Southwest New Brunswick?
So Southwest New Brunswick… [long pause]
I love the Magaguadavic River, the Magaguadavic is a beautiful river. It unfortunately doesn’t have a salmon run any more, but it’s a beautiful river.
What advice would you give someone looking to help save wild Atlantic salmon?
What I would recommend is joining your local watershed group or participating in some volunteer work when opportunities arise and an example that I’ll point out right now, something that everybody can do is to check out our recent documentary on open net pen, salmon aquaculture expansion on the south coast of Newfoundland. The industry would like to expand across the south coast and it’s pristine wild salmon country. There’s a lot at stake. We produce a documentary on it. It’s called Rock Plastic Salmon. Yeah, well it’s available on YouTube and I’d encourage people to go check out the film, learn about the issue and we’ve created a website also called rockplasticsalmon.com which directs people, which gives people some instructions on how they can take action to help with this important issue for wild salmon.
Watch: Rock | Plastic | Salmon – Act Now to Stop Salmon Farm Expansion in Newfoundland and Labrador
What is the future of the ASF under your leadership?
One of my core priorities is to maintain the unity of the federation. So working together with all of the regional councils and affiliated local watershed groups is core to our history and that will be a priority for me into the future as well. At the same time, I plan on expanding our partnerships with larger NGOs, key Indigenous organizations and First Nation communities and working internationally with organizations like the Atlantic Salmon Trust and the North Atlantic Salmon Fund, particularly to develop a really strong Greenland program. There’s a lot of opportunity for us to do more work in Greenland, working with the Greenlanders to coordinate better salmon conservation and both ways, not just expecting the Greenlanders to carry all the weight. We need to work together with them to do it. I recently traveled to Greenland and it’s an amazing place with fantastic people who care about the future of salmon and I think there is a lot of potential for us to work more closely with the Greenlanders on salmon conservation.
What is the easiest first step the federal or provincial government could make to protect Atlantic salmon?
They could follow through on the implementation of their recently released National Atlantic Salmon and Conservation Strategy and fund it for the 12 years over the life of the strategy. That was just released back in the fall at the end of Diane Lebouthillier’s leadership as Minister of Fisheries and Oceans Canada. What we’re asking of the federal government right now is to follow through with funding that strategy.
Another item if I may, is to put a more auditorium on the expansion of open net pen aquaculture on the south coast of Newfoundland. That’s a real priority area and Fisheries and Oceans Canada is ultimately responsible for the protection of wild fish and their habitat and this expansion threatens all of that.
