James Murray: The simplest and most powerful thing anyone can do is to take the story and pass it on

The actor, artist and campaigner on polluted rivers, the race to save wild salmon and why most activism should always begin with a story.

When I talk about the Atlantic salmon or about the state of our rivers, I’ve learned the only thing that actually reaches people is story. Facts alone don’t do it. Scare tactics definitely don’t. Sensational headlines push people into apathy. They feel defeated before the conversation has even begun. They think there’s no point in trying and they just slip back into whatever they were doing; scrolling or flicking to another channel. I’ve seen it again and again.

The story of the salmon doesn’t need any embellishment. It already has everything. It’s epic, it’s ancient, it’s full of character. It is basically Homer. Every salmon lives the life of Odysseus. It leaves its river as a tiny fish, disappears into the open ocean for years where it has to survive predators, compete for food and navigate currents and threats we barely understand, and then, somehow, it finds its way back home. Not just to the river it came from, but to the exact few square metres where it started as an egg. It’s a better story than anything most of us could write.

What people don’t realise is that the salmon is a keystone species. Everything in a healthy river system hangs off it. When I explain that to people, when I tell them they are looking at the fish that holds entire ecosystems together, they’re astonished then confused that nobody ever told them. It happens with people from every walk of life. City people, rural people, people who care about wildlife, people who don’t think they do. There’s a moment of genuine awe. I’ve never encountered anyone who wasn’t moved by the journey of the salmon once they heard it properly.

Most activism is just one person telling another person something true at the right moment

That’s why I always come back to the idea that the simplest and most powerful thing anyone can do is to take the story and pass it on. That’s activism. People imagine activism as chaining themselves to buildings or shouting in the street, but most activism is just one person telling another person something true at the right moment. Most people don’t even know the basics of how salmon live. So every time someone hears the story and repeats it, it creates another ripple. You can build a movement out of that.

The challenge is keeping people engaged. People do make changes, but they’re human. They fall off. They stop eating farmed salmon for a bit and then they get tired or stressed and slip back. We all do that in every part of our lives. But the fact that people are making an effort at all is a shift. That didn’t happen years ago. And with salmon, the whole thing is moving so fast that you don’t have the luxury of looking away for long. Once someone understands how quickly this fish is disappearing, the urgency becomes very real. This isn’t some distant environmental problem you can push 50 years into the future; we could actually lose Atlantic salmon in our lifetime. At the rate things are going, our children might never see a wild one. That gets through to people in a way climate graphs never will.

I think a lot about simplicity. If you want to fix rivers, the idea sounds straightforward. But the second you begin, you touch everything; pollution, abstraction, farming, planning, sewage, policy. One simple idea opens into a long chain of systems that all need to change. It’s the same with the salmon. If you save the salmon, you save everything the salmon depends on. You save the river. You save the habitat. You save the entire catchment. You help protect the ocean because you’ve protected the fish that returns to it. It’s never just one thing. But framing it as one thing gives people a way in; a fixed point they can hold onto.

Collaboration is absolutely essential. I say it constantly. Salmon don’t care for egos, logos or silos. They move through every part of the system and they’re affected by every decision made along the way. The organisations involved in river and marine issues often act like separate tribes. NGOs can slip into competition. People can villainise the water companies to such an extent that they refuse to speak to them, even though they’re sitting on resources that can help. Government gets dismissed as useless, but they’re the ones who ultimately sign off on every legal mechanism we rely on. You can’t afford to push people away in this work. You can hold them accountable, yes, but you still have to be able to sit at a table with them. Otherwise nothing ever changes.

That’s why I’m working on Project White Hart. The whole idea is to get every stakeholder of the river into the same room with the same purpose: saving the chalk-stream salmon. Chalk streams are already rare and fragile, and if you save the salmon, you end up saving the whole system around it. The project is built on human values rather than organisational ones. Shared purpose, generosity, communication, responsibility. Real community. And that matters because community is disappearing everywhere. People feel isolated and overwhelmed, and activism becomes a way of finding one another again. People come for the issue but stay because of the people they meet along the way. Once they feel part of something real, they keep going.

Creatures of Light, Murray's' new collection of paintings that aim to raise awareness of the plight of endangered wild Atlantic salmon in rivers across the UK

Creativity has become another way I talk about all this. Art has a different kind of power. Words are everywhere now. The world is drowning in them. Articles, posts, reports, opinions. Everyone is overwhelmed. Art bypasses the noise. It goes straight to whatever part of the mind hasn’t shut down. When I created Creatures of Light, I wanted it to be something people would look at and wonder about. I wanted questions before explanations. Sometimes an image can do what paragraphs never will.

I work closely with scientists and campaigners. They give me the information. I try to find a way to translate it so people don’t immediately turn off. That’s something I can do. I’ve always said that actors are paid attention seekers, so I might as well put that instinct to work. When I was working on The Crown I managed to persuade the cast to boycott salmon for lunch. It was an easy win as soon as they heard the nefarious nature of how they’re farmed, and how bad for you farmed salmon is. I just happened to convert them when we were all trussed up in royal uniform costum. So you had Andrew (the artist formerly known as Prince) pontificating to The Queen, Prince Philip, Charles, Anne and the rest about the environmental hazards of farmed salmon and insisting they stop eating it immediately. It seems now with recent news that MOWI (salmon farmers) have been officially stripped of the royal seal, art was imitating life in the green room that day. I wish they’d shot it and included it in the series!

The contradictions in this world are astonishing. I went to an event run by an ocean NGO. There was a speaker on stage talking passionately about the dangers of salmon farming. The caterers, and of course this wasn’t their fault, were walking around the room with trays of smoked salmon. People were listening to this detailed explanation of what’s wrong with aquaculture while eating the very product being criticised. No one noticed. That’s how deep the disconnection is. People don’t link their actions to the thing being discussed even when it’s happening at the exact same moment.

There’s also a bigger gap, and it sits offshore. The government still refuses to classify Atlantic salmon as a marine species. The fish was listed as endangered less than two years ago, yet it isn’t included in the list of species protected in marine zones. The official reasoning is that salmon are considered a freshwater species. That is absurd. The majority of their life is spent in the ocean, and that is where many of the pressures are. Predators, industrial activity, marine pollution, microplastics, warming currents. We know far less about that part of their journey than we should. Without marine protection, we’re trying to save a species while ignoring the stage where it is most exposed. It’s a policy gap that could be fixed quickly and easily, and yet it just sits there unresolved.

I keep coming back to the same belief. The story matters because it gives people something they can hold onto. Once someone feels connected, they begin to act. Once they act, they meet others who are acting. Community and purpose forms and once you have that, the work sustains itself. The problems are huge, but people aren’t powerless. They just need a way in.

That’s what the salmon offers. It’s a single thread that runs through rivers, oceans, policy, ecology, community, creativity. Pull on that thread and everything else begins to move. That’s why I keep telling the story. And that’s why I want as many people as possible to tell it with me.

This conversation took place at the Hay Winter Weekend on 29 November and has been edited and condensed for clarity and flow. 

The wider context, including the science, the failures and the potential fixes, is explored in Murray’s podcast, The Last Salmon.

One more thing

The rapid decline of the wild salmon is a warning signal that the systems (i.e clean water) they – and we – depend on are failing. If we can halt their decline, we'll reap the benefits.

Project White Hart is on a mission to save England’s chalk stream wild Atlantic salmon.

If you're a riverkeeper, landowner or other local stakeholder, they want to hear from you.