The Salmon by Michael Wigan

Author:Michael Wigan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2013-08-05T16:00:00+00:00

The Pressure

The same factor has made salmon runs flinch from the start – call it the pressure of human development.

Maybe in some parts of the Earth the pressure of development is actually slackening, despite growing numbers of humans. There are sorts of land and land areas which the present time has no particular use for. An example might be the hill country in Spain, from which the livestock farmers have departed and where now only the old or the alternative lifestyle folk play out their lives. There are places in Europe from which human population is in retreat, for a variety of reasons. Where I live in Scotland many of the glens are empty where once there were shepherds. Some deer stalking occurs; little else.

But seven-tenths of the Earth is covered not by land but by water. Probably the pressure on the watery element is greater universally. There may be areas that were once fished which are now left alone, but that is because the fish are no longer there. The oceans in general are at the cutting edge of development. The deeps will soon be mined for ore, energy and minerals; the surface already accommodates increasing traffic.

The zones salmon occupy in the northern hemisphere are not less used, they are harder used. Some of this development presents threats. Whilst in the modern time nothing equates in lethality to a barrage barring access to breeding, as widescale damming once did in Europe and America, or to relentless river-mouth netting removing the breeders, there are uses of water which may be equally inimical to salmon in the longer term.

European leaders are pledged to reduce fossil fuel emissions. For Britain this instruction translates into power companies being obligated to source more energy from what are called ‘renewables’, or sources of energy that do not die when burnt but are plugged in to earthly respirations which repeat themselves.

The most proven renewable is hydro-power, or water-turning turbines. It is thousands of years old, without byproducts or wastes, and has had a role in shrinking salmon range from long ago. Water theft is as injurious to salmon as taking range from the deer, or trees from the nesting birds.

Hydro-power has trapped and throttled many once-great salmon rivers. Indeed, the undammed rivers we have discussed are the minority. Salmon are found now in wild places because power is not needed at the extremity. Salmon’s territory has terribly contracted: the silver fish used to be everywhere.

When member nations of the EU signed the conventions on climate change, salmon were potentially affected. In 2008 Europe gurgled downwards into a major economic recession when the banks collapsed. Fighting bad balance sheets, governments inflicted cuts on public services. Many government departments were shredded. At a time they were most needed, as it turned out, they were under-manned.

In Britain an explosion of hydro-electricity proposals was launched at the flimsy government bodies meant to assess their suitability. Time will tell how many unsuitable hydro-electric schemes crept through under the radar and received planning consent.

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