The funding will be provided by Sheikh Muhammad. UK government officials today distanced themselves from the project, claiming it was a private-sector initiative. However, it is likely that such a major scheme involving some of the world’s most prestigious fisheries scientists could not proceed without sanction from Prime Minister Jay Vent’s office.
Some observers speculate that Sheikh Muhammad’s initiative may not be universally welcome in his own province. The area is home to several radical Wahhabi madrasas, religious training schools, and it is understood that salmon fishing is regarded as an unacceptable activity by some Wahhabi imams. Water is also a scarce resource in the Yemen, and its diversion into the wadis to support a run of salmon will not be universally popular in a country where the availability of water is often a matter of life and death.
Article in The Times, 17 August
British fisheries scientists in major row
Concerns were raised yesterday in Parliament that a key Government agency, the National Centre for Fisheries Excellence (NCFE), is going outside its mandate. Set up a decade ago to support the work of the Environment Agency in monitoring and improving the health of rivers in England and Wales, NCFE is now said to have diverted over 90 per cent of its resources into a project to introduce Atlantic salmon into the Yemen.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) confirmed that the funding for the Yemen salmon project is not coming from the UK taxpayer but has been met entirely from private-sector sources. However, questions are being asked as to whether this is an appropriate use of a key government department at a time when so many environmental and other challenges face rivers in England and Wales as a result of global warming and the risks from agricultural and industrial pollution to our rivers. A spokesman for the RSPB confirmed that, if the Yemen salmon project went ahead, the society would seek to have English cormorants exported to the Yemen, to ensure that the natural checks and balances on any salmon river were maintained.
Extract from Trout & Salmon, 18 August
Comment
We acknowledge that we have, from time to time, sung the praises of the National Centre for Fisheries Excellence. This organisation had established for itself within the angling community a reputation for good science and common sense.
Fly-fishing has become ‘cool’ in the USA, and even in the UK we are discarding our waxed jackets for the latest in clothing technology from Orvis, Snowbee and many other manufacturers. Films are made about fishing, once regarded as the most boring of sports. This trend was firmly set by the making of A River Runs Through It in 1992, while television programmes about fishing such as A Passion for Angling and Go Fishing attract prime-time audiences and are repeated endlessly on satellite channels.
So, fishing is fashionable, and its appeal crosses borders and it is becoming truly international, but nothing so far has prepared us for the idea that the mountains of the Heraz, in the Republic of Yemen, are soon to become the next playground for internationally minded game fishermen seeking the latest salmon fishing thrill.
Who is making this happen? A prominent and wealthy citizen of the Yemen has teamed up with the National Centre for Fisheries Excellence, an organisation we would not have anticipated would become involved in an adventure of this kind. But money talks and the millions of pounds that Sheikh Muhammad of the Wadi Aleyn is spending are talking loudly enough to grab the attention of the NCFE and even (it is rumoured) the director of communications at Number 10 Downing Street.
We have looked back through our files to find a similar instance of such absurdity from a government department, but we are unable to find anything to parallel this. At a time when the health of English and Welsh rivers is so fragile, and stocks of salmon and sea trout, not to mention brown trout, appear threatened by climatic change, our best fisheries scientists have been committed to a hare-brained scheme which is of absolutely no benefit whatsoever to our own angling community here in the UK.
Extract from the Sun, 23 August
‘Chest’ wader
Glamorous Harriet Chetwode-Talbot, the dreamy blonde who is masterminding the crazy plan to bring salmon fishing to the Yemen, refused to talk to our reporter when we rang her today. We contacted her at exclusive West End estate agents Fitzharris & Price, to ask her to comment on her wacky idea-let’s all go salmon fishing in the desert! She couldn’t tell us too much about how it would all work, and refused to say anything about her Yemeni boss, Sheikh Muhammad. So we asked if she would like to get her kit off for our photographer and pose for us in ‘chest’ waders. We’re still waiting for her answer!
Letter to the editor of Trout & Salmon
Dear Sir,
I feel compelled to respond to the recent article about introducing salmon into the wadis of the Yemen.
Whilst I applaud the intention to introduce the sport of angling where fishing for sport has not so far been widely practised, I am bound to ask what is wrong with coarse fishing? Wouldn’t it be more practical and, dare I say, more affordable for the average Yemeni to have dace or perch introduced to their rivers? What about considering stillwater fishing for rainbow trout in the Yemeni reservoirs, an even more accessible and economical sport for the average fisherman? To me, the decision to introduce salmon into the wadis of the Yemen without any consultation is characteristic of the elitist attitude which still prevails far too often in fishery circles in this country and, it appears, in the Yemen as well.
Yours,
(Name withheld)
Letter to the editor of the Daily Telegraph
Dear Sir,
I understand that there has been a lot of fuss about a plan to introduce salmon into the Yemen. I served in the Yemen in the 1950s. I was based in Aden and had the opportunity to see local fishermen going after everything from anchovies to sharks. I can well remember the Yemeni fishermen standing with perfect balance on the prows of their boats, setting out to sea to catch all manner of fish. I know that the Yemeni people are natural fishermen, and I am sure would make fine anglers, given the chance.
I applaud the imaginative nature of this project.
Yours sincerely,
(Major) (retd) Jock Summerhouse
Letter to the editor of The Times
Dear Sir,
The Republic of the Yemen has much expertise in the management of its fisheries. The Ministry of Fish Wealth is the responsible party, and the legal framework for our fisheries management is Aquatic Law N°42 (1991).
The Yemen fishing industry is second to none, being responsible for an annual catch of 126,000 tonnes per annum of different species, pelagic and non-pelagic, both by artisanal and by industrial means. Our annual consumption per capita of fish is 7.6 kilos per head.
It has been reported in your press that certain individuals are seeking to install a salmon fishery in our Yemeni watercourses. We have no official knowledge at this time of such proposals but we can confirm that such proposals would be entirely in accordance with the excellent Yemen traditional skill and expertise in fishing and fishery management.
Aquatic Law N°42 makes no reference to the management of a salmon fishery and would have to be amended in due course to include the possibility of a such a fishery. We respectfully conclude that such a project, if true, would be in the national interest and would be symbolic of Anglo-Yemeni co-operation.