Imagine a river system where management depends on the lightest possible human footprint. Where trees aren’t cut. Trails aren’t improved. Rivers left to flow on their own to the sea.
Such a place exists, about an hour’s chopper ride from the Russian city of Murmansk, on the remote Kola Peninsula, where Atlantic salmon, arctic char, sea trout and brown trout swarm in the rivers that run into the Barents Sea. It’s called the Atlantic Salmon Reserve, and the video below shows you just how successful it can be when we are but visitors to the land and waters, and not permanent residents.
It’s a great idea, to be honest, but it’s not a new one. If fact, TU toyed with the notion of proposing reserves on western public lands for sensitive fish species, like wild steelhead and native cutthroat trout. The idea hasn’t take off in the states just yet, but there’s proof that, sometimes, it’s best just to leave things just as they are.
The Atlantic Salmon Reserve is one such place.
— Chris Hunt