From the Lake Pedder and Franklin River campaigns in the 1970s and 1980s to the logging and destruction of old growth forests for woodchips Tasmania’s history of strong campaigns against environmentally-damaging development has always been framed as a “jobs versus environment” issue when it has really been about profits versus the environment.
Environment activists point to thetoxic practice of industrial-scale fish farms and say it risks Tasmania’s reputation as “clean and green”.
Tasmania’s salmon aquaculture industry started as a small, low-tech industry in the 1980s. It has grown to become a billion-dollar operation, producing approximately 75,000 tonnes of Atlantic salmon each year.
Atlantic salmon, a non-native species, is farmed in sea cages along Tasmania’s estuaries, inshore channels and harbours. The cages are open to the ocean and waste washes into the surrounding water.Salmon smolt are raised in hatcheries in some of the state’s most pristine rivers. Hatchery waste with minimal treatment is often released back into the rivers. Fish pens have taken over beautiful channels and bays.
Labor and Liberal governments appear to be completely captive to aquaculture companies’ demands. As production accelerates, Tasmania’s once healthy waterways have become devoid of plant and fish species.
The high densities of fish and exposure to pathogens create breeding grounds for disease and parasites. Weakened fish suffer congenital diseases and succumb more easily to viruses, bacteria and harmful parasites. From eggs to adulthood, the salmon are manipulated to enhance rapid growth to the detriment of the fish’s health.
Disease and abnormalities are rampant. Pesticides and insecticides also cause disease as chemicals affect embryo development and cell structures.
Salmon are also affected by oxygen levels in the water, population density and feed quality, with treatment by antibiotics being used throughout the fish’s life.
A memo from , released under the freedom of information, revealed the salmon industry had used more than 31.4 tonnes of antibiotics in marine leases between 2003 and 2022.
Antibiotic overuse
The has warned that misuse of antibiotics is accelerating the development of antibiotic-resistant organisms. It described this as “one of the biggest threats to global health” with the ability to render some of the most critical drugs in modern medicine ineffective.
Animal welfare groups describe the salmon fish pens as “petri dishes of pathogens”, given their high levels of ammonia and carbon dioxide, mixed with pesticide residue, antibiotics and faeces.
Nothing lives beneath these pens. Sailors and fishers will attest to the once beautiful D’Entrecasteaux Channel near Hobart now marked with huge dead areas where fish pens have been. Over 2017-2018 there was a mass die-off of 1.35 million farmed salmon and trout in Macquarie Harbour on the west coast, a unique and sensitive waterway adjacent to a World Heritage Area. It was the result of a combination of high temperatures, low dissolved oxygen and the presence of a disease called pilchard orthomyxovirus.
Marine dead zones were recorded as spreading as far as the Wilderness World Heritage Area.
A bacterial outbreak of farmed salmon in the lower D’Entrecasteaux Channel earlier this year led to rotting chunks of fish and fatty globules washing up on beaches across southern Tasmania. The EPA has refused to disclose the amount of antibiotic used or the number of salmon cages treated at the fish farms during this outbreak with EPA director Wes Ford saying the information was “commercial in confidence”. This is despite the regulator having previously revealed details of salmon farm antibiotic use.
There is little independent monitoring and enforcement despite laws requiring both. The industry acts as a law unto itself. , said the government should regulate a requirement for real-time disclosures of antibiotic use at fish farms. “People have an absolute right to know all the information when tonnes of antibiotics are entering their recreational waterways.”
The EPA’s disclosure practices have changed over time. Last April, itTasmanian Inquirerthat Tassal had used 180 kilograms of oxytetracycline to control a disease outbreak at its Soldiers Point lease near Bruny Island.
However, after the state election in March last year ita Right to Information request for real-time disclosure of antibiotic use as a routine measure.
Industry secretive
Salmon corporations have pressed government agencies to keep embarrassing information secret. Right to Information documentsthat Tassal lobbied the EPA against the public release of two antibiotic residue reports in 2022. The agency released the reports.
Alistair Allan, marine campaigner for the Bob Brown Foundation describes the salmon industry as “out of control”. “As much as 15% to 20% of all farmed salmon die as part of this environmentally and morally bankrupt industry. The closest number of animal deaths in Australian farms I could find was battery cage chickens at 4%.”
Allan said the malpractice is industry wide but “unbelievably the RSPCA still thinks it’s appropriate to certify Tasmanian salmon”. He wants them to drop this certification “given their mandate to prevent cruelty to animals”.
The collusion with the government and regulators continues unabated. Seven weeks before it was revealed thousands of tonnes of fish had died in Tasmania’s salmon leases, the chief veterinary officer quietly downgraded the biosecurity risk of Piscirickettsia salmonis, the bacteria killing the fish, from being a “prohibited matter” to a “declared animal disease”.
This change substantially reduced the corporations’ obligations on how to deal with the outbreak: it now admits that fish from diseased pens are being sold for human consumption.
Luke Martin, Salmon Tasmania’s ex-chief executive, confirmed in April that salmon was being harvested for human consumption from infected pens. Martin assured the public that quality control checks were in place. “The companies are very confident that the quality … of the product is not being compromised at any level.”
Allan said the latest drone footage taken at a Huon Aquaculture farm in the D’Entrecasteaux Channel appeared to show live fish being placed into a dry tub with dead fish which, he said, meant the RSPCA had “no choice but to drop [its] certification of this toxic and cruel industry”.
Allan said the reality of factory-farmed salmon means “our waterways and beaches are covered with rotting chunks of diseased salmon”. It also means the Maugean skate “has been pushed to the edge of extinction, reefs and sea floors are covered in sludge and slime, and communities are completely fed up with the corporate takeover of their waters”.
Amendments to EPBC Act
Just before the caretaker period, Labor rushed though amendments to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999(EPBC Act) to further protect the destructive, commercial salmon industry in Tasmania.
This could sound the death knell for the endangered Maugean skate, which is only found in Tasmania’s Macquarie Harbour. Scientists have repeatedly warned that salmon farming is its key threat.
The amendments dilute the EPBC Act’s effectiveness in protecting threatened species and critical habitats.This includes allowing development approvals to be transferred to state governments, which may have less stringent environmental protections.
The alternatives to industrial scale fish farming in Tasmania includes continuing to explore and enact new methods such as on-land farming and off-shore operations to reduce its environmental footprint. The Environment Defenders Office (EDO) recommend immediately reinstating the moratorium on new salmon leases and revoking salmon farming leases in shallow, low-flush bays and estuaries.
Eloise Carr, from , argued in 2023 that the industry could be restructured to create a sustainable industry “without significant impact” on employment or government revenues.
“The Tasmanian salmon industry never misses an opportunity to promote its economic claims, but one word is rarely mentioned — tax. The salmon industry’s economic claims always focus on the big dollar figures of sales revenue.
“But how much actually goes back to the Tasmanian public? Near zero.”
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She said Tax Office data shows that the three main salmon companies, which sold more than $7 billion worth of fish, paid just $51 million in tax over the last nine years.
“Taxpayers have been subsiding this industry and its administrative and scientific burden for too long. But now that we have that science, we should at least listen to it.”
Australian Bureau of Statistics data suggests that between 1100 and 1700 people work directly in the salmon industry, less than 1% of state jobs. The industry estimates that up to 3000 people are employed indirectly.
“All jobs are important, especially in regional communities, and workers should be supported to transition to sustainable employment. But the government needs to be making decisions based on fact, not fiction,” Carr said. She said scientists have been warning the industry about the problems with fish farming in Macquarie Harbour for more than a decade, but they have done nothing to prepare their workforce “for this inevitable situation”.