Welcoming salmon back to the River Aire for the first time since the Industrial Revolution

The Atlantic salmon needs your help to come home to the River Aire. After swimming 3,000 miles from Greenland you can lend them a fin on the last few miles of their amazing journey. The King of Fish, once so common that apprentices refused to eat it no more than three times a week, is missing from Yorkshire’s River Aire. Now, with pollution from the Industrial Revolution a distant memory, an exceptional opportunity exists for them to return. All that lies in their way are four high weirs over which they cannot swim. Help is at hand as we prepare to build fish passes to speed them over these obstacles and back into the River Aire.

The Aire Rivers Trust wants to welcome salmon home to a renewed river and to reconnect people to it. We want to change bad memories for good, by introducing everybody to the magnificently restored river on their doorsteps. Working with schools, community groups, fishing clubs, canoeists, walkers and others, we will help make local communities once again proud of their River Aire, a key part of a much-loved iconic landscape and a vibrant home to fish, birds and other wildlife.

Developing the Natural Aire has been supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund (£714,000); Yorkshire Water (£600,000); Environment Agency (£943,000); Garfield Weston Foundation (£30,000); Banister Charitable Trust (£50,000) and several other small grants and charities. Your donation will help add the final touches to delivering this exciting project, making the River Aire a home fit for salmon and loved by all.

What will your money buy?

 £5 buys a riverside tree that creates shade and habitat for a wide variety of river creatures from young salmon to kingfishers.

 £10 will buy a litter picker for volunteers to clean the river.

 £50 will pay for way markers to signpost a “Discovering the Natural Aire” riverside walk.

 £75 will pay for planting a metre of willow to restore and protect riverbank habitat.

 £100 will pay for tools, such as spades and saws, for conservation volunteers to make a better home for salmon.

 £250 will run a training course for volunteers on how to work safely by water.

 £500 will buy a fishing taster session to introduce youngsters to the wildlife that lurks in their local river.

 £1,000 would fund professional support for us to clean up debris and fly tipping from a hard to reach river “grot spots.”

 £1,500 would buy a riverside information board so people can discover their river history.

 £2,000 would pay for a fun-filled geocache trail running the length of the River Aire.

 £3,000 would set up a citizen scientist network to spot pollution before it harms our river.

 £5,000 would establish a riverside community group to care for our local river.

 £10,000 would buy a van to run our “Developing the Natural Aire” river stewardship programme throughout our project area.

 £15,000 would pay for our “Defending the Natural Aire” primary schools outreach programme along the length of the river. Through this we will explore the wonder of our river with young people and create the next generation of river defenders.

 £20,000 would pay for an environmental apprenticeship, giving a young person a fantastic career start.

Thank you!