Activists scale up Tasmanian salmon farm attacks

The salmon industry is bracing for a highly critical national consumer campaign by green groups.

Environment Tasmania's strategy director Laura Kelly. Picture: Patrick Gee

The salmon industry is bracing for a highly critical national consumer campaign by green groups providing information to shoppers on environmental, health and animal welfare issues with fish farms.

Backed by celebrities, the Environment Tasmania campaign will target supermarket chains and their customers, presenting a damning “ratings card” on the three main salmon producers.

The industry believes the new annual traffic-light-style guide to their performance, in areas such as antibiotics in fish feed, deaths of seals and birds, and stocking densities, is seriously flawed and biased.

But ET strategy director Laura Kelly said the data came from the industry or government and the guide to be distributed via targeted social media advertising and handed to shoppers at supermarkets was “constructive”.

“A ratings approach is constructive because it gives the companies somewhere to go in the way a boycott doesn’t,” Ms Kelly said. “We want all the companies to transition to green, so that our vulnerable marine environment is protected and people can eat salmon guilt-free.

“If we were anti-salmon there would be no amber or green ­option for industry. By offering these benchmarks we’re shining a clear light on what a genuinely sustainable future looks like.”

The campaign, to include handouts to shoppers at supermarkets in NSW, Victoria and Queensland, is backed by several Tasmanian-raised celebrities, including Home and Away ­actress Bonnie Sveen.

“The excrement (from fish farms) being pumped through our river systems is having a huge effect. We’ve all noticed a change in the behaviour of our mammals and the fact that there just isn’t the marine life that there used to be,” Sveen said.

The Tasmanian Salmonid Growers Association attacked the ET campaign. “The claims made by ET are false and ­malicious and the organisation should be held to account by being required to produce evidence to support its claims,” an association spokesman said.

“ET’s current outburst is clearly designed to damage the brand reputation of one of Tasmania’s finest foods and one which is produced by an industry that is more closely controlled and regulated than any other form of primary production.”

Salmon farming, an $862m industry, is doubling in Tasmania by 2030 to meet strong demand, creating jobs but also friction with local communities about feared pollution of waterways. The industry insists any impacts are localised and temporary and argues it produces a sustainable alternative to other protein-rich food products. 

ET’s report card rates all three main salmon farmers based in Tasmania where the industry is focused, across key benchmarks. “The overall rating for all companies is red,” Ms Kelly said.

“And all companies receive a red rating for crucial issues like their dumping of salmon poo in our oceans, use of genetically altered salmon, antibiotic use and the amount of salmon that die from malformations or disease prior to being harvested.”

Huon Aquaculture said the guide lacked evidence. “ET ­appears unable to undertake simple research on our website and find the facts, which would refute their claims,” the company said.