Project Deveron

Wild Salmon Crisis

The wild Atlantic salmon population in Great Britain is now endangered.

A CORE RIVER PARTNERSHIP IN ABERDEENSHIRE

About Project Deveron

Project Deveron is an ambitious, award-winning catchment-scale programme to create a stronghold for wild Atlantic salmon in northeast Scotland. Delivered in partnership by the Atlantic Salmon Trust and the Deveron, Bogie & Isla Rivers Charitable Trust, it brings together large-scale habitat restoration with long-term scientific monitoring to tackle the pressures affecting salmon across the river system.

The ambition is bigger than restoring individual stretches of river. Project Deveron is working towards a healthier, better-connected and more climate-resilient catchment, where restoration is strategically targeted and its impact can be measured over time. In doing so, the project aims not only to support the recovery of the Deveron’s wild salmon, but to demonstrate an approach that can help inform salmon recovery across Scotland and beyond.

Project Deveron in numbers

1,266km²

Catchment-scale restoration partnership

11km

Tributaries reconnected

20,648

Returning adult salmon logged on sonar

How Project Deveron works

Catchment Restoration

Drone mapping and baseline surveys as part of our catchment wide ‘audit’.
Barrier removal to reconnect spawning tributaries.
Buffer strips to protect from overgrazing.
Restoration of native riverside woodland.

Advanced Monitoring

Passive Integrated Transponder (PIT) tagging of 2,000 juvenile salmon parr each year.
Adaptive Resolution Imaging Sonar (ARIS) fishing counting camera.
30 in-river temperature loggers recording water temperatures every 15 minutes.
Environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis to map biodiversity and species abundance.
Monthly invertebrate sampling.

Community Engagement

Local outreach and awareness events.
Collaborative restoration planning with landowners, farmers and local businesses.
Two farming clusters in development.

A WATERSHED MOMENT

Dam removal on the Deveron

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ARIS SONAR COUNTS

Returning adult salmon count

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AWARD RECOGNITION

EMMA Award nomination

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Project Deveron on film

Cold, Clean Water

Filmed at the outset of the project in 2023, Cold, Clean Water follows actors Jim Murray MBE and Dominic West as they explore Project Deveron, meet the teams behind the work, and discover why catchment-scale restoration matters for wild salmon, nature and people.

The pair discuss the problems impacting wild salmon in freshwater and at sea, and why salmon are an indicator species for the health of the wider ecosystem. Their journey sees them visit a weir removal site prior to work taking place, and help out with the PIT tagging team working to understand how habitat restoration is linked to the health and fitness of juvenile salmon.

A Watershed Moment

In 2025 Project Deveron succeeded in achieving one of its major early habitat restoration goals in the River Deveron catchment.

With support from Chivas Brothers’ ‘The River Within’ programme and the European Open Rivers Programme, the formerly overgrown and decrepit Mill of Eden weir on the King Edward tributary has now been removed, providing unhindered access for wild Atlantic salmon, trout, eels and other wildlife to over 11km of habitat for the first time in 150 years.

This short film tells the story of the people and partnerships that made this important work a reality.

Award Winning Science – Restoration with Purpose

In 2026 Project Deveron won the Integrated Monitoring Across Water, Land & Air category at the 2026 Environmental Monitoring & Measurement Achievement awards.

This award recognises the science that sits at the heart of the project, but more importantly, for what that science is there to achieve.

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