From the Wye & Usk Foundation

We are proud to announce that Stephen Marsh-Smith, Director of the Wye & Usk Foundation, has been awarded the OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for services to the “Environment and to Conservation on the Rivers Wye and Usk.” An avid fisherman for over half century, the award recognises the extraordinary efforts he has put into restoring and protecting the two rivers over the past 15 years.

Following the dramatic decline of the Wye’s Atlantic salmon runs in the late 1980s and 1990s, Dr Marsh-Smith, along with a group of other Wye owners, began to address the issues affecting their plight. In 1996 he established the Wye Foundation and began work to reverse the seemingly inexorable decline of Wye salmon and to try to restore both the river and the salmon numbers to levels at which they once again could be an important asset to the region’s economy. The organisation became the Wye & Usk Foundation (WUF) in 2002 and is now Britain’s largest Rivers’ Trust.

In addition to securing funding and running environmental projects, the Foundation, under his leadership, has been instrumental in measures to reduce the exploitation of salmon runs at a time when the species is in grave danger. These included the buy off of the commercial netting and putcher trapping of salmon in the Severn estuary in 2000, the cessation of the Irish Drift net fishery in 2007 and the introduction of catch and release initiatives for Wye salmon anglers.

Away from the Wye and Usk, Stephen has also played an important role in the political side of angling. As chair of the Anglers’ Conservation Association he helped to unite the various representative bodies into the Angling Trust and became its first Chairman in 2009. He also played a part in the creation of the Association of Rivers’ Trusts in 1999.

Nick Brabner, Chairman of the United Usk Fisherman’s Association and a WUF Trustee said: “It is testament to Stephen’s hard work that while achieving success in the world of river conservation, he also found time to be a Dental Practitioner. Despite having to negotiate the often treacherous waters of angling politics, his drive and commitment to the preservation of rivers, their salmon and the environment as a whole have been justifiably recognised with this honour.“

... he deserves it.

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