The Rhine Ministerial Conference 2020 :
the main decisions concerning Fish passability
- Complete fish passability: Migratory fish shall be able to migrate from the North Sea up to the Rhine Falls at Schaffhausen and to colonise their habitats. For this purpose, on the Upper Rhine, fish passes at the barrages Rhinau (2024), Marckolsheim (2026) and Vogelgrün (as soon as possible), including in all “Schlingen” have to be operational and at least 300 further migration obstacles in the catchment area have to be made passable.
- the official translation of the complete Ministerial pressrelease will be available soon by ICPR and published on our webpages. Read the official french and german texte
- > more to read on the CIPR Website
FREE THE RHINE FOR THE SALMON
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 Rhine was the longest European river habitat of the Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar). Even as recently as a hundred years ago, a million salmon a year found their way up the Rhine and its tributaries, well into all the Swiss Alps. Nowadays there are only a few hundred individuals left in the Rhine from Rotterdam to the Strasbourg dam. Migration stops at this point due to several dams.
Salmon Comeback! is a coalition put together to ensure that all parties involved fulfil their commitments to create the necessary conditions for salmon to return back to their best spawning grounds near Basel. A joint agreement was worked-out and signed at the ministerial conferences in Bonn (2007) and Basel (2013).