21 May 2016

The World Fish Migration Day (WFMD) is a one day global-local event to create awareness on the importance of open rivers and migratory fish. This event is celebrated for the second time. Over a 1000 organizations around the globe are involved.
World Fish Migration Day (WFMD) is a one day global initiative, with local events worldwide, to create awareness on the importance of open rivers and migratory fish. It is hosted by the World Fish Migration Platform.

Why?
Many migratory fish species are severly threatened. The main causes are man-made obstacles like dams, weirs and sluices, which disrupt the natural flow of rivers and prevent fish migration. Many fish need to migrate to reproduce, feed and complete their life cycles. Migratory species make up a crucial link in the food chain and play an important ecological role in productive river systems. Furthermore they provide an important food supply and livelihood for millions of people around the world.

In order to bring global attention to these facts about fish migration as well as the needs and importance of connected natural river networks, the World Fish Migration Day was initiated by a partnership of 6 organizations. The WFMD is also sponsored and supported by many non-profit organizations and private companies. Our Partners and Sponsors can be found here.

What is World Fish Migration Day?
The concept of WFMD is that organizations from around the world volunteer to organize their own event around the common theme of: CONNECTING FISH, RIVERS AND PEOPLE. By working together we can improve our impact on raising awareness, sharing ideas, securing commitments. By doing so, we create a greater driving force, which will allow for easier management, conservation and rehabilitation of migratory fish stocks.

First WFMD held on May 2014
The 24th of May 2014 marked the first ever World Fish Migration Day (WFMD), a worldwide celebration of healthy rivers and free-running fish with over 270 events. Over a 1000 different organisations contributed to WFMD2014 in over 50 countries. There was an amazing excitement on the day with a buzz on Facebook and Twitter. The WFMD2014 Facebook page reached over 36 000 people on the day through posts, page likes and mentions. WFMD2014 was a great success. For examples and results from WFMD2014 click here.

Participate in WFMD2016
We want to build on this success with the next WFMD on 21 May 2016, and hope to double the amount of events and participation. Our aim is to have more than 500 events around the world; starting in New Zealand, following the sun and ending as the sun sets on Hawaii. The WFMD will bring global attention for the need for open rivers and free routes for fish migration. It will deliver international press coverage and new fish migration awareness initiatives will be developed. Participating organization will organize their own event and arrange their own outreach communication and publicity campaign on a regional and national level. The WFMD partnership will include each event on the official WFMD website and take care of the central coordination, international publicity and relevant updates.

We encourage organisers to be creative with their events. Some popular event types are field excursions (river visits, kayak, fishway and boat trips), presentations, events at zoos, museums and aquaria and official openings of fishways and dam removals. Click here to register your event for WFMD2016!