Nominee Summary
Project Deveron is a 10-year partnership between Atlantic Salmon Trust, The Deveron, Bogie and Isla Rivers Charitable Trust and Marine Directorate, working with local landowners, estates, anglers, ghillies, farmers, funders and communities to restore one of Scotland’s iconic salmon rivers. Project Deveron combines community-led catchment restoration with world-class monitoring, turning local knowledge and partnership into practical action. The project is already delivering improvements for salmon and the community, building shared evidence, attracting new investment and giving the Deveron community the tools to protect its river, salmon and rural heritage for future generations.
Overcoming Challenges
Project Deveron has had to overcome ecological, technical and partnership challenges. Ecologically, the large, varied catchment affected by pressures including water abstraction, barriers to migration, diffuse pollution and climate challenges. These pressures cannot be solved by a single organisation or intervention. The Deveron catchment audit allows pressures to be examined, action to be prioritised and a long-term restoration plan with measurable outcomes delivered. Technically, the project set out to do something ambitious: establish reliable, long-term monitoring of both adult salmon returning from the sea and juvenile salmon leaving the catchment. Installing and operating advanced ARIS sonar technology in a dynamic river environment required careful site selection, specialist analysis, power supply, internet connectivity and a flood-resilient structure. The project has already achieved a major milestone by delivering the first accurate full-river adult salmon count for the Deveron, creating a baseline against which restoration impact can be measured, and providing information to the Scottish Government for its annual salmon assessment regulation. Working in such a diverse community is both challenging and rewarding. The Deveron is a large, mixed land-use catchment where salmon recovery depends on decisions of many different farmers, estates and land managers. To address this, the project is developing of farm clusters. This provides a structured and practical way for farmers to engage, identify land-management opportunities, and shape action. The success of this approach involves working with partners including NFU Scotland, GWCT, and Chivas Brothers to facilitate the farm clusters and deliver benefits for water quality and wildlife.
Supporting the community
Project Deveron uses Atlantic salmon as a flagship for wider ecosystem recovery, which benefits both nature and people. The Deveron is a working river as well as a wild river: it supports angling, ghillies, estates, local businesses, tourism, contractors and community pride. The project gives these groups a shared plan and a shared evidence base for a healthy catchment to benefit salmon and people. Project Deveron has established farmer-led catchment clusters that enable neighbouring farms to work together on practical, evidence-based solutions to improve soil health, water quality and river resilience. By providing trusted advice, facilitating peer-to-peer learning and helping secure funding, the project has reduced barriers to environmental improvement while supporting more productive and sustainable farm businesses. This collaborative approach delivers benefits for farmers, the wider environment and wild Atlantic salmon by reducing diffuse pollution, restoring riparian habitats and improving the quality and connectivity of freshwater habitats across the catchment. The project supports the community through visible, practical restoration. The Deveron, Bogie and Isla Rivers Charitable Trust’s wider work on biosecurity, invasive species, education and volunteer training helps local people take direct action for their river. By communicating progress through films, events, annual reports, open meetings and partner updates, Project Deveron has helped build confidence that salmon recovery is a shared community effort, not a remote conservation project.
Ethical/environmental standards
Project Deveron is built on high ethical and environmental standards. Its guiding principle is that conservation should be evidence-led, locally supported and designed to deliver long-term public benefit. The project does not rely on short-term fixes. It combines rigorous monitoring with practical restoration so that decisions can be tested, adapted and improved over time. Ethically, the project respects the role of local people and land managers. It works through partnership with The Deveron, Bogie and Isla Rivers Charitable Trust, Marine Directorate, estates, farmers, anglers, ghillies, funders and local communities. This ensures that restoration is not imposed on local communities, but shaped by those who know and depend on the river. It also helps ensure that public, charitable and private investment is directed towards work with a clear environmental purpose and community benefit. Environmentally, the project takes an ecosystem approach. It recognises that salmon recovery depends on healthier whole catchments: free access to spawning habitat, cold clean water, reduced diffuse pollution, and greater climate resilience. Actions designed for salmon also benefit trout, eels, invertebrates, birds, mammals, plants and people. The project therefore meets high environmental standards by restoring natural function, protecting biodiversity and creating a durable model for river recovery across Scotland.
