Paul Maley | October 06, 2008
CLIMATE change is likely to deprive us of the pleasures of eating beef and lamb, instead forcing us to contemplate platefuls of kangaroo meat and threatening another Australian table staple -- seafood.
A report to be released by the CSIRO today says changes in temperature, ocean currents, rainfall and extreme weather events could cost Australian fisheries tens of million of dollars.
Hardest hit could be stocks of Tasmanian salmon, estimated to be worth $221million in 2005-06 and representing 30 per cent of the total national aquaculture production.
The report says projected ocean warming of 2-3 degrees by 2070 could render salmon farming unviable, leaving open the possibility of salmon farmers having to shift their operations offshore to deeper, cooler waters.
And the retreat of mangrove forests and seagrass beds could leave commercially farmed banana prawns, mud crabs and barramundi without their habitats, the study found.
Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said the report was a preliminary assessment of the effect climate change could have on Australia's commercial fishing and aquaculture industry, worth about $2.1 billion.
"The report finds climate change is likely to affect not only the fishing industry but also the regional and coastal communities the industry supports," Senator Wong said.
"It finds climate change impacts will vary by region and that many impacts are expected to be negative, with some data suggesting that effects may have already occurred."
The CSIRO assessment comes on the back of a similar warning issued by the Rudd Government's climate adviser, Ross Garnaut, who warned that sheep and cattle farming was "highly vulnerable" to climate change.
Professor Garnaut backed kangaroo meat as an alternative, on the grounds that kangaroos emit "negligible" levels of methane gas.
"For most of Australia's human history -- around 60,000 years -- kangaroo was the main source of meat. It could again become important," the CSIRO report says.
However, the report says climate change may have positive impacts on some fish stocks.
The CSIRO's Richard Matear, who helped write the report, said some species could benefit from expanded habitats.
"There are other fisheries that will benefit from having expanded range because temperatures are warning and they can move further south," Dr Matear told The Australian.
But he said that given the long lead time with some aquaculture facilities such as salmon farms, the industry needed to start thinking about the potentially destructive effects.
"When people put these aquaculture facilities in place they're looking at investments for 10-20 years, so people need to start thinking about the potential effects now," he said.
Dr Matear said it was not certain all of the changes documented in the report were attributable to climate change.
The infestation of long-spined sea urchin that threatened Tasmanian rock lobster and abalone fisheries was not necessarily the product of climate change, he said. "Is that a climate change signal or is it more likely a human impact of fishing? I don't think it's certain."
