Estonian Green Movement work with salmon

Taavi Nuum, Estonian Green Movement

Estonian Green Movement (EGM) and Coalition Clean Baltic have the same reasons for their work with salmon. This is poor condition of the wild salmon stocks in the Baltic Sea.

Wild salmon populations used to exist in 9 Estonian rivers that belong to the Gulf of Finland drainage area, and in river Parnu. However, six of these populations (Selja, Loobu, Valgejõgi, Jägala, Pirita, Vääna) have been supported by smolt releases of the river Narva strain in the last few years. Most fish were finclipped and returns have been reported from all stocked rivers. Small native self-sustaining salmon populations occur in the rivers Kunda, Loobu, Keila, Vasalemma and Pärnu. The present annual salmon smolt production estimated by parr densities is low, generally below 1000 in all the rivers.

The main factors restricting fish migration are man-made hydrotechnical structures and natural terraces. The present reproduction areas accessible for salmon and sea trout in the Estonian rivers flowing into the Gulf of Finland cover about 30 ha. Above the obstacles, there are significant potential reproduction areas (total about 35 ha) in the rivers Kunda and Valgejõgi. Realizing the real cost of producing hydroenergy on Estonian rivers, EGM has organised two seminars on salmon problems, with discussions, how to improve salmon conditions in rivers. Nowadays salmon spawn only within 2-18 km long lower reaches, even if a longer spawning run is possible in some of the watercourses (the rivers Selja, Loobu, Pirita). In addition to seminars, salmon issues were covered by Estonian media. Salmon seminars convinced officials and dam owners that building fish pathways would substantially increase the size of salmon reproduction areas in rivers, thus increasing productivity and creating more buffers for stocks to maintain the variability. In 2005, the Estonian Ministry of Environment finally started the ISPA project "Technical assistance for improvement of ecological quality of watercourses", which aims on designing solutions for allowing fish migration over the 15 dams on salmon rivers. EGM also participate in EIA process during this project.

The second reason that prevents recovery of these small salmon populations in Estonian rivers is poaching for salmon in the rivers. Fishing with electrofishing equipment has been prohibited for a long time, but selling this equipment is allowed. In reality, this equipment is mainly used for illegal salmon fishing. Today, after seminar discussions and lobby work, we have achieved that selling electrofishing equipment and its possession will be prohibited by the new Fishing Act, which is waiting for its last reading in the Estonian Parliament this autumn. We hope that it will help to fight poachers.

Also, we introduced another initiative to Estonian officials and salmon activists. This is environmental public monitoring system, which is working effectively in Latvia. However, its creation in Estonia meets some difficulties.

Another particularly important lobby issue is enforcement of the national conservation programme to protect wild salmon. Its objective is to increase natural production of wild Baltic salmon to at least 50% of the natural production capacity of each river by 2010, as in the Salmon Action Plan (SAP). Today it is juridically invalid as being adopted by the former IBSFC, and it is far from implementation in Estonia.

In addition to organising seminars and lobbying officials, EGM performs field actions. They give possibilities for participation of wider amount of people and attract more media. This summer EGM organised salmon spawning place restoration works on Pirita river. The Pirita river passes Tallinn on the east and is a part of the water supply system of Tallinn. The river runoff is regulated by several water reservoirs. Construction of the Vaskjala dam resulted in significant reduction of the flow in the downstream part of the river, where the spawning and nursery grounds of salmonids were situated. This also caused bad sanitary conditions in dry years in this 24 km long part of the river. Automatic flow gauging facilities were built in 1998 to guarantee a minimal sanitary runoff of 1.0 m3/s. Because of shortage of proper salmon spawning grounds, we decided to create a stone/gravel riffle, which is a suitable place for salmon spawning in the part of the river, where it was impossible before. The rapid was constructed from large stones and covered by gravel slightly coarser than the local bed material. The overall area of created gravel riffle is 150 m2. In autumn and spring, we will perform monitoring, how many spawners have used this spawning ground and how much the parr density has increased in this river part. If the monitoring results show positive signs, we will exceed the gravel riffle next summer.

Success for all CCB friends!