The United States, Greenland and other private interests have reached an agreement to help preserve endangered populations of wild salmon in the North Atlantic. The agreement suspends all commercial salmon fishing in West Greenland, while allowing a limited annual subsistence harvest.

The five year agreement, signed August 9, is intended to minimize the risk that wild salmon spawned in U.S. rivers and streams, as well as the waters of Britain, Ireland and continental Europe, will be harvested in the fisheries of West Greenland. Wild Atlantic salmon from southern Europe and North America migrate to West Greenland to spend two winters there and then return to their birth rivers to spawn.

"The agreement, which has been concluded between the North Atlantic Salmon Fund and the Organization of Hunters and Fishermen in Greenland and signed by the Atlantic Salmon Federation, will contribute greatly to efforts of the United States and others to allow Atlantic salmon stocks to recover," said Philip Reeker, deputy spokesperson for the U.S. State Department.

The Atlantic Salmon Federation and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation also signed the agreement as sponsors, and the Greenland Home Rule Government has endorsed the agreement.

The West Greenland fishery is the last ocean fishery that targets North American wild Atlantic salmon. Both Canada and the United States no longer conduct commercial fisheries for Atlantic salmon. Canada retired licenses and gear in the 1990s at a cost of $72 million and the U.S. terminated its fishery as far back as 1947.

In return for volunteering to forego their rights to harvest salmon, Greenland's fishers will find alternative work in a number of new development projects to be introduced along the Greenland coast. The North Atlantic Salmon Fund (NASF) and KNAPK, the commercial fisher's organization in Greenland, have already implemented a number of successful sustainable fishing programs for lumpfish and snow crab.

Under this new agreement KNAPK, NASF and the Atlantic Salmon Federation (ASF), with financial support from the Department of Interior and the Department of State in the U.S., will identify and invest in alternative fisheries development programs for Greenland fishermen.

Fewer than 200 wild Atlantic salmon remain in the U.S. where they are protected under the Endangered Species Act, while in Canada and Europe scientists warn that many stocks are well-below safe biological levels.

"Most people have no idea of the depth of the crisis facing wild Atlantic salmon because the situation has been masked by the huge quantities of artificially-reared salmon that reach fishmonger's slabs from fish farms.," said Orri Vigfusson, chair of NASF. "So this splendid agreement may have come just in time."

"But make no mistake, this agreement has check points," Vigfusson added. "If the commercial fishing of mixed stocks of salmon that is still going on in Ireland, Scotland and Norway does not soon stop the Greenlanders could go back to fishing at short notice. Why should they show respect for a threatened species while the governments of other countries ignore the salmon's plight?"

Vigfusson said officials in the U.S., Canada, England, Northern Ireland, France, Spain and Germany have already agreed that most commercial salmon fishing "has to stop before real restoration programs can begin." The agreement is not yet supported by fisheries ministers in the Irish Republic and Scotland, he noted.

The United States has already adopted "drastic measures" to conserve Atlantic salmon, State Department spokesperson Reeker said.

"We have closed all U.S. fisheries and have taken the critical step of listing virtually all of the last remaining wild populations of Atlantic salmon as endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act," he said. "Because Atlantic salmon face a number of risks in waters beyond U.S. jurisdiction, however, international cooperation is needed to ensure the survival of this resource."