The status of salmon has reached a critical point - it's time to build resilience for salmon and people.

Eiko Jones Photography

The 2022 IYS Pan-Pacific Winter High Seas Expedition

From February - April 2022, four research vessels and over sixty international scientists will participate in the largest ever pan-Pacific research expedition to study salmon in the North Pacific Ocean.

2022 Pan-Pacific Winter High Seas Expedition

Visit our 2022 Pan-Pacific Winter High Seas Expedition page for more information and exciting updates!

IYS Synthesis Symposium

Salmon and People in a Changing World

Across the Northern Hemisphere, accelerating environmental change and human impacts have placed salmon at serious risk. The International Year of the Salmon seeks to set the conditions for the resilience of salmon and people by connecting people and organizations that study, manage, and have an interest in salmon. Once connected, a new salmon intelligence system will be able to rapidly share and develop knowledge, raise awareness, and take action to sustain salmon.

Building Connections

The International Year of the Salmon (IYS) is a concerted effort between the NPAFC and the NASCO Parties (Canada, Denmark (in respect of Faroe Islands and Greenland), European Union, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation and the United States) and partners from government organizations, NGOs, academics, conservation projects and researchers around the Northern Hemisphere. The North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission (NPAFC) and North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organization (NASCO) have reached out to their networks to ensure the IYS has meaningful connections throughout the Northern Hemisphere. At its inception, the IYS was supported by the NASCO Parties and key partners from Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), the Pacific Salmon Foundation (PSF) and the science organizations from the NPAFC member countries – since then, our key partnerships have continue to expand.

Most importantly, any organization that is interested in building resilience between salmon and people has the opportunity to work with and be a part of the International Year of the Salmon.

Generating Knowledge

Once connected, the organizations and individuals studying and striving to conserve salmon will have a greater collective capacity to share information and work collaboratively. Responding to new and rapid changes in socio-economic systems requires understanding the impact of factors that affect the productivity and survival of salmon. Together, these partnerships and knowledge systems will create the conditions necessary for the resilience of salmon in a changing world. Three IYS signature projects are currently underway to help set the conditions required to build connections and generate knowledge.

The Likely Suspects Framework

Salmon are an iconic species due to their remarkable ability to migrate thousands of kilometers across landscapes and through coastal and high seas ecosystems. Effectively sustaining salmon demands that correct decisions are made at critical points throughout their life history, and the effectiveness of these decisions depends on considering relevant upstream and downstream factors. Unfortunately, for most decision makers this knowledge is not readily available. The Likely Suspects Framework is an evidence-based approach to linking our understanding of factors affecting the survival of salmon across all life history stages. In an international effort that spans the Atlantic and Pacific basins, the framework will mobilize data and provide analytical decision support tools for scientists and, most importantly, policy and resource managers.

Data Mobilization

In an increasingly unpredictable world, rapid access to data for salmon and their associated ecosystems remains one of the most critical barriers to science and management. The solution to breaking these barriers lies in the application of international data standards, the use of trusted data repositories, and the availability of innovative tools to find and synthesize data for scientific studies and management decisions. The International Year of the Salmon is working with partners in government, academia, and the NGO community to define and apply best practices and new technologies, such as graph databases, to make salmon data discoverable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable.

Previous North Pacific High Seas Expeditions

Throughout the course of the International Year of the Salmon’s 5-year initiative, two High Seas Expeditions have been conducted in the Gulf of Alaska and the first ever pelagic ecosystem survey of entire North Pacific Ocean is being planned to study the winter ecology of salmon in the North Pacific Ocean in the winter of 2022. The objective of the survey is to demonstrate the utility of such a survey to understand how increasingly extreme climate variability in the North Pacific Ocean and the associated changes in the ocean environment influence the distribution and survival of salmon.

2019 International Gulf of Alaska Expedition

2020 Gulf of Alaska Expedition

Sharing our Knowledge and Experience

Many threats to salmon are shared across the Northern Hemisphere. To establish the conditions for the resilience of salmon and people, we want to collaborate at local to hemispheric scales. Through partnerships, the International Year of the Salmon will connect scientists, Indigenous Peoples, fishers, policy makers and resource managers to create an intense burst of outreach and research that will enhance the effectiveness of their efforts to conserve and protect salmon.

Eiko Jones Photography

Featured Events

IYS Seminar Series: Exploring Frontiers of Salmon Research in Open Ocean Ecosystems

The International Year of the Salmon is putting on an exciting 7-part virtual seminar series exploring a diverse range of topics related to the 2022

Conference on the Winter Ecology of Pacific Salmon: Results from the 2019 and 2020 Gulf of Alaska Expeditions

Participants from the two Gulf of Alaska expeditions in the winters of 2019 and 2020 and scientists from Korea, Japan, Russia, the United States and

The Third NPAFC-IYS Virtual Workshop on Linkages between Pacific Salmon Production and Environmental Changes

Pacific salmon face many challenges and uncertainties associated with environmental variability such as
climate change. It is more important than ever that we promote

International Salmon Data Laboratory

The International Year of the Salmon involves a dozen countries with one overarching goal: Salmon are resilient to climate change. Survive surprise. Salmon uniquely integrate

Salmon Comeback

The goal of the “Salmon Comeback!” campaign is the return of the Atlantic salmon to the whole of the upper Rhine river basin.

Originally the

Salmon in the Stour

Once an important waterway for our industrial heritage, parts of the Stour have become neglected and polluted. We’re improving access for people and enhancing the

Find Salmon Organizations in your Country

To learn what’s happening in your country please click on a flag below or continue to browse through this website to learn about IYS events and projects happening throughout the Northern Hemisphere.

Canada

Danmark/Denmark

England

Suomi/Finland

France

Deutschland/Germany

日本 / Japan

Norge/Norway

Northern Ireland

Portugal

Republic of Ireland

Scotland

Sverige/Sweden

United States

Wales

You Can Contribute

Human activities continue to impact salmon, with many stocks now at critical levels. It will take all of us – Indigenous Peoples, fishers, scientists, governments, concerned citizens – working together to increase understanding, create awareness, and take action.