We want to restore and conserve migratory fish worldwide! 

Migratory fish are amazing. They travel throughout rivers to fulfill their lifecycles and some can swim more than 10,000 km per year between breeding and feeding grounds. Some even find the exact river where they were born after years in open sea. They navigate using the currents, magnetic fields, even their sense of taste and smell. There are more than 1,100 freshwater species which migrate a distance of more than 100 km, and billions of people around the world who depend on them for food, sport, research and intrigue. However, increased impacts from instream barriers, pollution and other habitat changes have massive effects on the survival of these fish and the communities that depend on them. 

To bring more attention to these issues, the World Fish Migration Foundation's founder, Herman Wanningen, organised a local Fish Migration Day seventeen years ago. To everyone’s surprise, a thousand people turned up that day. People were actually interested in migratory fish! Herman left his government job and expanded this Fish Migration Day from a regional, to national to, in 2014, an international event.

Because of the success of this event, the World Fish Migration Foundation was founded as a non-profit organization to bring global attention to these topics and give others the tools to understand, promote and restore rivers to a free-flowing state. The foundation's mission is to support people who are working on opening up rivers for migratory fish, through international outreach and offering support networks and the tools to do the job. This will help protect and conserve migratory fish and the rivers we depend on.

Wild and free rivers can be protected and even the most polluted and dammed rivers can recover. We start with public engagement, then develop smart policies and funding streams, then help implement effective on-the-ground solutions to create healthy rivers filled with migratory fish. Only then will we start to realize our vision of free-flowing rivers full of fish.

Our Priorities

President's Fishery Conservation Award 2019 Recipient

Click below to download the annual report of 2018

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