‘The Orri’ 2025 Winners
We are delighted to announce the inaugural winners of The Orri, our newly launched UK salmon conservation award: Ribble Rivers Trust and River Cree Hatchery & Habitat Trust.
Named in honour of NASF’s founder, the award-winning salmon conservationist Orri Vigfússon, The Orri supports local UK conservation projects that restore salmon rivers and reconnect riverine communities with this remarkable migratory species.
We launched The Orri this autumn to help realise our vision of a future where UK salmon thrive once again in rivers that are valued and nurtured by the communities that depend on them. Today, wild Atlantic salmon in the UK are endangered, with numbers having fallen by 70% over the last 40 years. Supporting community-led action is therefore more urgent than ever.
River Cree Hatchery & Habitat Trust
The River Cree Hatchery and Habitat Trust (RCHHT), a Scottish charity based in Dumfries and Galloway, was founded in 2011 by Jamie Hyslop and members of the Newton and Stewart Angling Association. They were thrilled to be recognised by The Orri for their long-standing work in salmon conservation and community engagement.
The RCHHT project includes a planned expansion of the existing hatchery alongside enhanced public engagement and river restoration efforts. Project co-ordinator Murdo Crosbie shared how the award will help:
“It’s wonderful to have been selected. We want to expand our current hatchery to improve the quality and survivability of the salmon fry reared here, helping to supplement the wild salmon population in the River Cree.”
He went on to explain the wider community benefits the Orri Award project funding:
“We already run school visits, train volunteers and upskill local unemployed people to improve their employment opportunities. The Orri will allow us to improve our hatchery operation and the education and training programmes we can offer.”
Ribble Rivers Trust
CEO Jack Spees of the Lancashire-based Ribble Rivers Trust was equally excited to win the competitive award for their community-driven initiative, ‘Hodder Together’.
“The £10,000 Orri award, together with NASF support to crowdfund a further £10,000, will enable us to deliver impact on multiple levels. We’ll be engaging local schoolchildren in citizen-science surveys, employing our apprentices for in-river restoration, and working with local anglers to monitor salmon spawning after gravel is added.”
He explained how practical habitat improvements will deliver benefits beyond salmon recovery:
“By installing berms, and increasing gravel, we will increase the number of riffles and pools, creating better habitat for salmon and helping to slow the flow. When scaled up, these measures also help mitigate the increased flood risk communities have faced over the last 50 years, both here in the Ribble Valley and across the UK.”
Looking Ahead
NASF (UK) Chairman Robert Sloss is optimistic about the power of community-driven river restoration:
“The good news is that local, in-river initiatives like these can make a marked difference quite quickly to wild salmon numbers—and, in turn, to the number of adult salmon returning from the sea to spawn again.”
Both winning projects will begin work in late spring 2026. Ahead of this, they will be crowdfunding throughout February and March to secure the matched funding needed to deliver their plans.
The Orri provides a £10,000 award as 1:1 match funding, along with a package of media and strategic support from NASF (UK) to help each project raise the remainder. Today’s announcement marks just the beginning of our partnership with these exceptional community-based initiatives.
The 2025 award attracted a highly competitive field of entries, and the judges noted the exceptional quality of all shortlisted projects. We look forward to supporting this year’s winners as they bring their impactful conservation work to life in the spring.
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