|
AQUACULTURE
Net Profits
In South Australia, fat tuna spell fat profits. But at what cost
to the environment?
By
Stewart Taggart/PORT LINCOLN
Issue
cover-dated July 04, 2002
BEFORE DAWN, fisherman Rick Kolega and a seven-man crew head
out to sea from the South Australian fishing town of Port Lincoln,
250 kilometres west of Adelaide. Their 30-metre boat groans under
the weight of 14 tonnes of squid, mackerel and herring. By noon,
they're back in port, their vessel empty. Carting seafood out to
sea, and returning with nothing. This is fishing? It is if you're
farming tuna, South Australian style.
By catching southern bluefin tuna at sea, and doubling their weight in
coastal pens before sale, the industry has turned the tide on its fortunes.
Revenues have expanded more than 10-fold out of a catch quota that's been cut by
nearly two-thirds since 1988.
The heyday of southern bluefin tuna fishing was in 1960, when an estimated
80,000 tonnes were pulled from the sea, mostly by Australia and Japan. As
catches fell dramatically in subsequent years, Australia, New Zealand and Japan
began reducing their collective haul--first to around 40,000 tonnes in 1984,
then to 11,750 tonnes in 1989. Hit by such a drastic contraction, many
Australian tuna-boat owners were on the verge of financial ruin in the early
1990s. That's when Port Lincoln tuna fisherman Dinko Lukin had an idea: Fatten
up the tuna between capture and sale to squeeze more value from each catch-quota
tonne.
Early efforts were crude: They involved poling tuna aboard fishing boats and
bringing the fish to shore in buckets a few dozen at a time. Many died en route.
But techniques have improved. Now, guided by spotter aircraft, boats encircle
schools of southern bluefin with huge nets and steer them back to Port Lincoln
in what resembles an oceanic cattle drive, with 97% of the fish surviving.
The fish are then divided between pens and fed on pilchards, herring and
sardines. Over four months, a 20-kilogram wild southern bluefin balloons to
become a 40-kilogram slab of high-quality fish. It is eventually sold for top
dollar in Japan's sushi markets.
For the Australian tuna industry, this move upmarket has been dramatic.
Australia's 14,500-tonne share of the overall trilateral catch quota between
1984 and 1989 would have been sold to the local Port Lincoln tuna cannery for
around $1 per kilogram. Today, Australia's 5,265-tonne share of the 12,117-tonne
current trilateral quota is transformed into roughly 8,200 tonnes of cut fish,
ultimately selling for around $23 per kilogram and almost entirely airfreighted
to Japan--yielding revenues that could hit $160 million this year.
The effect of this tidal wave of money is evident in Port Lincoln. Late-model
sports-utility vehicles cruise the streets, freshly painted tuna boats bob about
in a new marina and white-painted Mediterranean-style apartment units are
springing up along the shoreline. And the town's visitor centre proudly claims
that Port Lincoln has more millionaires per head of population than anywhere
else in Australia. But continued good fortunes are not guaranteed. Brian
Jeffriess, president of the Australian Tuna Boat Owners Association, worries
about the industry's dependence on the Japanese market. A weaker yen would
affect Japan's willingness to pay top dollar for tuna.
Adding to the unease is the environmental lobby, which claims uneaten food
and fish waste from the cages may be polluting local waters. They also worry
that exotic viruses could be introduced to the isolated region via the imported
frozen fish used to feed the tuna, potentially threatening the South Australian
oceanic ecosystem.
Conservationists claim that even the current drastically reduced tuna catch
is still too high to allow the species to replenish its numbers to sustainable
levels. Mark Parnell, an attorney with the South Australia Environmental
Defenders Office, has fought the industry over the past five years on a number
of environmental issues. "If they can breed the tuna in captivity, close
the pollution cycle and find something else to feed them apart from other fish
taken from the sea, then I think the industry has great promise," Parnell
says.
Jeffriess says the industry is researching ways to breed tuna in captivity
and develop new fish feeds to reduce the risk of introducing viruses. He adds
that continuous environmental improvement is inevitable for an industry now just
10 years old.
Out on the ocean, meanwhile, Rick Kolega is just happy to be netting the
rewards of the current good times. He has 10,000 tuna in offshore pens getting
fatter by the day. With each fish worth up to $1,000, he and other fish farmers
now hire security guards to sleep on boats and guard their catch against
rustlers.
|
