Tuna Environmental Research and Monitoring
The southern bluefin tuna (SBT) aquaculture industry has since its inception in the early 1990s been aware of the need for a healthy farm environment to address the requirement for environmentally sustainable development (ESD) and to maintain optimal production levels.
The initial focus for environmentally related research (1990-96) was in characterising the baseline environmental conditions of the tuna farming area, developing appropriate techniques, measuring any detectable changes due to tuna farming and developing simple carrying capacity models.
In 1996, a regional tuna environmental monitoring program (TEMP) was initiated. In 2001, this was replaced by a farm-site compliance based monitoring program, discussed more fully below.
Environmental research has also continued, with a technical investigation completed for the "Plan amendment report relating to marine aquaculture in Lower Eyre Peninsula" and three projects in progress since 2001 through the Aquafin CRC. Their focus is on the development of novel technologies to improve the efficiency and reduce the costs of the present TEMP, characterising in more detail farm wastes and their impact on the surrounding environment, and developing suitable techniques for improved regional environmental sustainability assessment. Relevant documents are available in the Environmental Monitoring section of this website.
Tuna Environmental Monitoring Program (TEMP)
The present Tuna Environmental Monitoring Program (TEMP) evolved from a request from Primary Industries and Resources South Australia (PIRSA) Aquaculture, to the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI), to provide recommendations on a farm-site compliance based environmental monitoring program for the tuna farming industry. The program subsequently adopted by PIRSA Aquaculture as a licence condition for tuna farming was in amended form based on further consultation between PIRSA Aquaculture and the Tuna Boat Owners Association of South Australia (TBOASA), the association that includes all tuna farmers. The program presently includes:
- a quantitative assessment of benthic infaunal communities sampled from a site 150m outside the farm license area boundary (known as the "compliance site") with surrounding "control" areas more than 1000m from farms; and
- a qualitative comparison between two 150m transects radiating from a select pontoon used for tuna farming and a 150m transect from the licence boundary away from the farm to the compliance site.
The quantitative data are used to determine whether there are unacceptable (ie. non-compliant) differences in the types and abundances of taxonomic groups between control and compliance sites.
on-compliance is defined as a change in the infaunal benthic community equating to either a fourfold or greater increase in average infaunal group abundance or a 50% reduction in the average number of infaunal taxonomic groups, relative to controls.
The TEMP in this form has now been undertaken by SARDI as a consultancy to the TBOASA for three years (2000, 2001 and 2002) with separate reports being produced for each tuna farming company addressing their SBT licence area(s). On completion, these reports are lodged with the TBOASA; PIRSA Aquaculture; and the Office of Coast and Marine, Department of Environment and Heritage (South Australia), as well as placed in the SARDI Aquatic Sciences library, which is open to the public, and on the Environmental Monitoring section of the SBT Aquaculture Subprogram web site.
