The salmon industry is calling for a “national interest exemption” to federal environmental protection laws so they can continue killing off one of Australia’s most endangered species. 

In 2022, the new environment minister Tanya Plibersek pledged that there would be no more extinctions in Australia. 

In 2023, Australian scientists warned that unless salmon farming was better regulated, the Maugean skate—a stingray-like marine animal from the dinosaur era—would go extinct. Salmon can be farmed in many places, but the Maugean skate only lives in one place in the world: Tasmania's Macquarie Harbour.

Australia's existing laws give Tanya Plibersek the power to protect the Maugean skate, but she is under huge pressure not to use those legal powers. 

If business continues as usual, without intervention from the Environment Minister, the Tasmanian salmon industry will go down in history for being linked to the extinction of a species.

Help counter the lobbying pressure from salmon industry.

The Environment Minister has the power to put science ahead of the salmon industry's profits and to protect the skate before it becomes extinct.   

Add your name to the petition >

Your impact

• Thanks to our supporters, the Australia Institute Tasmania’s work was critical to triggering a federal EPBC review of salmon farming in Macquarie Harbour.
• In 2023, we wrote to the federal Environment Minister with new scientific evidence showing the endangered Maugean skate, a ray-like animal, is at risk of extinction due in large part to salmon farming.
• In November 2023, the Minister announced a review of salmon farming in the Macquarie Harbour by the Federal Government, under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.
• National environment law requires a decision from federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek ‘as soon as practicable'. Yet the Minister has had 12 months and there is still no outcome.  

About the Maugean skate

• The Maugean skate is listed as Endangered under both state and federal legislation and is found only in Macquarie Harbour; one third of Macquarie Harbour is within the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area and the skate is one of the values of the World Heritage Area.
• Australia’s Threatened Species Scientific Committee has recommended increasing the threat level faced by the skate from endangered to critically endangered.
• With fewer than 1000 skates left, it’s more important than ever for Macquarie Harbour to recover so that the skate can survive in its only natural habitat.
• The IMAS report and other research published since this decision (summarised in our letter), confirms fish farms are having a significant impact on the Maugean skate. Fish farming is having the most detrimental impact on dissolved oxygen in the water, pushing the Maugean skate towards extinction due to lack of oxygen. Macquarie Harbour has unusual hydrodynamics, and the regulation of hydro-electric dam releases is a secondary concern because it can prevent natural reoxygenation. Gillnetting, extreme weather and climate change are adding to the threats, but the primary problem is the lack of oxygen caused by pollution from fish farming.
• The Conservation Advice for the Maugean skate, clearly identifies fish farming in Macquarie harbour as causing the main impact on the endangered Maugean skate. It says:
  – The highest priority conservation action is to “eliminate or significantly reduce the impacts of salmonid aquaculture on dissolved oxygen concentrations.”
  – It says the fastest and simplest way to achieve this is to significantly reduce fish biomass.
  – This is an urgent priority to be actioned before this summer (2023-24).
• No salmon farming proposal has ever been called in and assessed under national environmental laws.