Salmon in a Rapidly Changing World: Synthesis of the International Year of the Salmon and a Roadmap to 2030

Preface:
This bulletin is a compilation of six papers present­ed at an international symposium on Salmon in a Rapidly Changing World: Synthesis of the International Year of the Salmon held in Vancouver, Canada, during October 4–6, 2022. The objective of the symposium was “To convene a world class symposium to report on and synthesize the accomplishments of the International Year of the Salmon (IYS) and consider its legacy and recommendations for the future.” A total of 212 participants attended the IYS Syn­thesis Symposium, affiliated with 106 organizations and 11 Indigenous groups, from 11 countries throughout the Northern Hemisphere. Throughout the course of the sym­posium, there were 58 in-person presentations, 35 pre-re­corded presentations and 13 in-person poster presentations given. The IYS team coordinated eight synthesis groups in the lead up to the symposium that involved scientists from the North Atlantic and North Pacific basins collab­orating over joint presentations for the symposium and, in some cases, joint papers based on these presentations. The IYS Synthesis Symposium had a strong focus on forward looking perspectives, with the ultimate goal of outlining a roadmap for the resilience of salmon and people through to 2030.

The International Year of the Salmon (IYS) was an initiative governed by the North Atlantic Salmon Conser­vation Organization (NASCO) and the North Pacific Anad­romous Fish Commission (NPAFC) that took place from 2018–2022. The IYS was established with five themes, each with their own objectives:

• • Status of Salmon;
  • Information Systems;
  • Salmon in a Changing Salmosphere;
  • New Frontiers; and
  • Human Dimensions.

Outreach, engagement, and education were also key components of the IYS. This included improving public and political awareness of salmon’s cultural, social, and eco­nomic importance as well as challenges salmon face from major environmental changes and human impacts. The IYS was focused on making progress in all of the themes in order to set the conditions for the resilience of salmon and people in a rapidly changing world. Over the course of the five years of the IYS the impact of climate change on salmon and people has reached crisis proportions and the urgency of working together across the northern hemi­sphere has only grown. The IYS Synthesis Symposium was an opportunity to collectively assess what we have learned to date and to consider gaps and future needs.

While the number of papers is modest, they are the out­come of a successful effort to enhance a typical symposium setting to synthesize research over a large scope of inter­disciplinary topics over five years and in socio-ecological systems across the northern hemisphere. A typical sympo­sium would issue a call for papers with a few invited key­note speakers. In this case it was not practical to support the number of keynote speakers required to cover the sympo­sium scope, and asking a keynote to summarize a huge vol­ume of work would be unreasonable. Instead we put out a call for researchers interested in collaborating on “Synthe­sis Papers” in each of the session topics within a research theme. These papers were written by international teams with experts from the Atlantic, the Pacific, and in some cas­es the Arctic. The IYS team supported their development over six months leading up to the symposium. They offer a depth of analysis and collaboration that is unique and pow­erful. Several additional papers are in preparation that will not be ready for this publication with dozens of scientists committing to ongoing collaboration. The audience of sci­entists attending this synthesis symposium were very vocal in supporting this process and in a follow-up questionnaire overwhelmingly voted to have this symposium repeated in several years. This process leverages the extensive work taking place across the hemisphere to sustain salmon and is essentially a “force multiplier” allowing researchers to learn quickly and collaborate in what is an urgent situation for salmon and people as they adapt to a changing climate.

We are proud of what was accomplished with this sym­posium and are hopeful that NASCO, the NPAFC, and part­ners will organize another international symposium in the very near future. A word of thanks to scientific editor Dr. Skip McKinnell and technical editor Mr. William Stanbury with the NPAFC Secretariat.

Sincerely,
IYS Synthesis Symposium Steering Committee

Dr. Vladimir Radchenko (NPAFC), Dr. Emma Hatfield (North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organization), Ms. Livia Goodbrand (Fisheries and Oceans Canada), Dr. Alan Walker (Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquacul­ture Science), Mr. Mark Saunders (NPAFC/IYS), Dr. Ed Farley (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administra­tion), Mr. Aidan Schubert (NPAFC/IYS), and Mr. Tor Kitching (NPAFC/IYS).