PROFILE: NASF's founder and Chairman Orri Vigfússon has become the most honoured angler on earth. His non-stop work and dedication to the cause of restoring the fortunes of the wild North Atlantic salmon has brought him awards as diverse as Orders of Honorary Knighthood from both the Queen of Denmark and the President of Iceland, election as a European Hero by Time Magazine and a coveted Conservation Award from Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne. Now aged 62 Orri somehow finds time to combine his life as a prominent Icelandic businessman with the continual demands of trying to put the King of Fish back on the piscatorial throne. He makes endless trips round all sides of the North Atlantic to speak to anglers and conservationists, lobby government officials and politicians, meet commercial fishermen, give Press interviews, appear in TV and radio shows and give presentations to any organisation that can help restore wild salmon numbers. This is a schedule that would leave most people prostrate. But somehow he also manages to run a company that makes a premium vodka, ICY. It is so good that he can sell it to Russia.. He has operated a duty-free store, was for several years a director of Íslandsbanki hf (Iceland's leading financial institution) and helps to promote classical music especially his beloved Icelandic Opera of which he was the Director/Chairman through the 1990s. Being the front man of an international conservation organisation is just one of the demands that NASF and its branches round Europe and in North America make of him. He also is the organisation's chief fundraiser - an essential and very demanding role because.NASF's great successes depend on finding money. When he launched NASF with a group of Icelandic friends in 1989 he pioneered what now seems the obvious way of protecting the shoals of international salmon that were then shrinking towards extinction. Everywhere these already depleted stocks were being hammered by relentless commercial overfishing. If he was to change this disastrous situation he had to stop the netting and protect the salmon's migration routes.
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