IMPRESS SP5 Principal Investigator Prof Dr Robert Arlinghaus keynote speaker NASCO Annual Meeting
13.6.2017
At the Annual Meeting of the Intergovernmental Organisation North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organisation (NASCO), held in Sweden, June 2017, professor Arlinghaus with the substantial help by Sophia Kochalski, Early Career Researcher in IMPRESS, held an invited keynote presentation based on findings in the IMPRESS Subprogram 5, about the social dimensions of successful migratory fish conservation.
NASCO, together with their sister organisation, the North American Pacific Salmon Fisheries Commission, planning “Year of the Salmon” in 2019, invited Robert to talk about public perceptions and knowledge of salmon in four European countries. The talk ‘’Atlantic salmon – the human dimension’’ addressed some key findings from a large multinational study of how publics perceive and know about salmon coordinated by Sophia Kochalski and the post doc Carsten Riepe from Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries in Berlin.
The talk centred around how to take into account how the public of different countries have different and often less knowledge about salmon than many experts think. Even if they lack specific knowledge they care about fish and their aquatic habitat. In countries like Germany, France and likely USA the publics seem to loose their identity as salmon-countries, while in Scandinavia and Canada, the knowledge and awareness of salmon is higher. This must be accounted for, when stakeholders and decisionmakers are developing communication strategies.