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SalmonAid organizes to fight threat of extinction

Posted by: Maven on June 22, 2009 at 7:26 am

From the Oakland Tribune:

The plight of declining salmon populations and the commercial fishers they support up and down the West Coast drew hundreds of people to Jack London Square on Saturday and Sunday for the second annual SalmonAid Festival, organizers said.

The festival featured food, music and a message of conservation. Some salmon populations around the Central Valley are down 90 percent over the past eight years, SalmonAid Foundation President Jonathan Rosenfield said.

The issues facing wild salmon throughout California and as far north as Alaska involve many local interests represented by more than 2,000 small nonprofit organizations. The foundation first put together the event last year to unite their voices and help consumers, politicians and the media understand the enormity of the issue, Rosenfield said.

“One of the major issues we’re asking the state and federal governments to tackle is water management in the state of California,” Rosenfield said. “We have huge amounts of water being diverted from the greater Bay Area into the Central Valley for big agricultural corporations to grow crops out there that don’t make sense. For example, you’re seeing a lot of water used to grow grapes, which need a constant water supply to grow,” he said. “We don’t need to be growing grapes in the desert during a drought.”

Read more from the Oakland Tribune by clicking here.

June 22, 2009 · Filed Under Wildlife & Endangered Species

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