Johan Cederqvist. Photo: Staffan Westerlund
16 August 2024
The effect of hydropower on salmon fishery culture
Saturday 1 June, Johan Cederqvist presented his doctoral project about the consequences of hydro power expansion to the salmon population, and the salmon fisheries in a session about challenges and Opportunities for Biodiversity in the Arctic Cultural Landscape at Arctic Congress Bodø 2024.
Salmon has had a key role for human settlement for millenia in what is today Northern Sweden. One of the main driving forces for the Swedish state and the Catholic church to begin its colonisation of the Swedish north was to take control of the salmon waters.
In the second half of the 19th century, log-driving activities increased in Northern Sweden. River fishers held strong rights to the watercourse but the log-driving industry and the politicians, enforced changes to the law that weakened those rights. Increased log-driving led to damages to the salmon reproduction cycles and thus to a decline in the salmon population. Pollution from sawmills also contributed to the decline.
The history of legal changes was repeated when the hydropower industry became a national interest in the beginning of the 20th century; hydropower industry managed to push for legal changes to decrease stakeholders’ rights to watercourses which eased the expansion of the former. Hydropower industry intensified after the Second world war to the extent that salmon went extinct in most northern rivers and heavily declined in the rest. This led to the disappearance of the fisheries.
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