An independent feasibility study to assess the environmental and economic impacts of transitioning Tasmania’s salmon industry from marine to land-based operations has been rejected in Parliament.
The study, proposed by Independent MP Craig Garland, gained support from The Greens and independents Miriam Beswick, Rebekah Pentland and Kristie Johnston but ultimately failed to pass.
Had it been approved, the study would have examined the costs, benefits and opportunities of moving salmon farming operations onshore.
Garland presented the motion amid growing concerns over recent fish mortality events in Tasmania’s waters, including the death of over one million salmon in February alone.
“The Premier and the Minister for the Environment have told the Parliament this week that these deaths are due to warming waters, marine pests like algal and jellyfish blooms and bacterial infections,” he said.
“These are all symptoms of climate change and we know climate change will only get worse.”
Garland said a “future-proofing” transition to land-based salmon farming would ensure the industry’s sustainability, an approach he claims has been consistently overlooked by the government.
He estimates the move would require approximately 4,000 hectares of on-land salmon ponds.
“Is this the price Tasmania is willing to pay to get salmon out of its coastal waters?” he asked.
“I do not want to see an industry collapse and people out of work. As a fisherman myself, I know what it means to depend on the marine environment for livelihood.”
“If we go on land, we don’t have to shoot seals … We won’t be dealing with jellyfish blooms and the associated diseases. We won’t be dealing with fouled nets. We won’t be seeing dead, rotten, decomposing fish fouling our beaches and our waterways.”
“There will be no pushing of native fishes to extinction, as in the case of the Maugean skate. There will be no hundreds of kilos of antibiotics being put into our waterways, which then go into our fish, which we eat.”
Business, Industry and Resources Minister Eric Abetz said land-based salmon production presents its own challenges, citing international failures like Atlantic Sapphire.
“The company suffered multiple mass mortalities, on-land, multiple mass mortality events and an estimated $500 million loss before it collapsed in 2023,” Abetz said.
“The cause of the collapse, unmanageable energy costs and technical failures. These are fundamental issues when you consider if there were to be a change to on-land farming.”
