A Russian stronghold for salmon makes a comeback from past mining pollution.
What does a healthy salmon river look like? Take a good look at video below, you’ll see the water in Langeri River is clear and the salmon are running strong. In 2015 our partners with Sakhalin Environment Watch won a hard-earned court victory to stop local gold miners from polluting the Langeri.
The court case brought by Sakhalin Environment Watch was built on a rapid environmental assessment in 2014 by a team of scientists and Wild Salmon Center partners. The group found gold miners from a local company, Vostok-2, openly flouting the law by logging streamside forests, creating diversion channels, and discharging mining tailings into the Langeri River. The activities at the Langeri’s headwaters left spawning grounds heavily silted.
The mining company was ordered to halt operations and restore disturbed lands. This is good news for the salmon and for local fishermen in Wild Salmon Territory that are working to protect the regions fisheries and manage them sustainably.
Footage was taken in August 2018 by Dr. Elizaveta Kirilova, senior scientist at the Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution at Russian Academy of Sciences, with support from Sustainable Fisheries Association of North-East Sakhalin.
