The UK’s Missing Salmon Alliance is leading a global coalition to bring the art installation Salmon School to the heart of the COP26 Summit in Glasgow.
Salmon School is a community engagement project by the internationally renowned artist Joseph Rossano. Salmon School, featuring in the Blue Zone, takes to the global stage at COP26 to communicate the message that, with the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss, iconic wild salmon are on a path to extinction.
Salmon School brings together a community of artists, scientists, educators and environmental groups from all over the world, all contributing to the project’s artistic vision – salmon represent the global health of our rivers, oceans and ultimately our relationship with the natural world that sustains all human activity.
There has been a huge amount of support. The organisations involved include Salmon Nation, Atlantic Salmon Federation, Wild Salmon Center, the Smithsonian Institution and Artist, Joseph Rossano.
Alongside Salmon School, the Clyde River Foundation has worked with 26 primary schools along the length of the Clyde. They have learned about the remarkable story of the return of the salmon to the Clyde and contributed to our knowledge and understanding of these remarkable fish by collecting eDNA samples from the river. These will form part of a global database project being run by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC.
The installation, comprising of more than 300 salmon-like forms created from hand-blown molten glass, is a compelling tribute to a fish that holds great importance to Glasgow and is an indicator of the health of our rivers and oceans.
Wild Atlantic salmon populations are in rapid decline; wild Atlantic salmon stocks have plummeted by 80% in 25 years, and if the current trend continues wild salmon will be extinct in many areas of the world within the next 30 years.
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