Tassal is not clean and green

Will you help us stop a dead zone from being labeled clean and green?

I'm writing because I'm deeply concerned about the environmental crisis in Macquarie Harbour - and that the ASC is promoting the companies who are responsible for this crisis as 'sustainable.'

Tassal was the first company in Australia to get certification for all of its operations - and yet they have the highest number of licence condition breaches in Macquarie Harbour. The latest report by the Institute of Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) shows that all marine life under Tassal's largest lease in Macquarie Harbour is dead - and the dead zone extends 500 metres beyond the lease site. Scientists are warning that Macquarie Harbour has reached a tipping point and oxygen levels are so low that a listed endangered species - the Maugean Skate - is at risk of extinction.

This situation is not new - oxygen levels plummeted in 2013 - a year after salmon tonnage in the harbour increased by 360 per cent. Companies are saying that they could never have foreseen this as Macquarie Harbour is a very unique environment. But former fish farmers, scientists and environment groups warned in 2012 that exactly what has happened in Macquarie Harbour would occur - and there are clear 'knowns' about the harbour that make it unsuitable for intensive salmon operations - like naturally low DO, a tight balance between oxygen supply and demand, and poor flushing.

This week the ASC auditors announced that Tassal's worst impacted lease - the Franklin lease, would be exempt from Tassal's 2017 audit. It is imperative that what Tassal has done to this lease is considered in the audit for their remaining leases in the harbour, and that the ASC adopt the type of 'policy for the association of organisations' that FSC uses to prevent a company from having one site FSC certified, while they illegally log the adjacent site.

A review of the past two surveillance reports for Tassal in Macquarie Harbour also raises serious questions as to whether Tassal should have retained its certification over the last two audits. Tassal’s Macquarie Harbour farms received ASC accreditation in June 2014 (Gordon and Middle Harbour leases) and November 2015 (Franklin lease). Tassal then retained its accreditation through two subsequent surveillance visits by ASC auditors, completed in August 2015 and May 2016. By this time there was ample, publicly available evidence that conditions in Macquarie Harbour had deteriorated and Tassal was in breach of key ASC standards.

ASC Surveillance Reports also contain evidence of poorly reported breaches, and the closure of breaches listed as 'minor non-compliances' when evidence within the audit reports themselves shows that the non-compliance remained open. In summary - Macquarie Harbour is going belly up, and to certify a company that continues to pump tonnage into Macquarie Harbour is a risk to the ASC brand.

Please include Tassal's Franklin lease in your audit of Macquarie Harbour. Please also require a comprehensive assessment of oxygen levels in the harbour - not just at 5m as in past audits - but at 10, 15, 20 and 30 metres. Please consider Tassal's  history of licence condition breaches in the harbour, the leaked emails that show that as oxygen levels plummeted, Tassal lobbied for increased tonnage. Please consider the advice of IMAS scientists that endangered species are facing extinction and that the impacts from salmon farming in Macquarie Harbour extend to our Wilderness World Heritage Area. Please don't put your brand on environmental damage in Macquarie Harbour - it hurts our efforts to protect our backyard.

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Tassal is not clean and green

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