Salmon farming in the open ocean

March 1, 2024 - Nine years ago, New Zealand King Salon (NZKS) started the resource consent and consultation process for its Blue Endeavour open ocean salmon farm. Today they celebrate achieving final Government approval to proceed with an aquaculture project that will be a New Zealand-first - and a world-first in farming the King Salmon species in the open ocean.

Young salmon

Carl Carrington, NZKS Chief Executive Officer describes the process to gain resource consent, Fisheries New Zealand approval and to find common ground with iwi, eNGOs and the community as being "very robust."

Carl describes the next steps, having achieved this milestone, as "needing to walk before we can run."

"From here, we will complete our 18-month programme of rigorous benthic (seabed), seabird and marine mammal monitoring. This will provide a baseline of information, against which we can measure the impacts of a working salmon farm.

"The next step will be a 'proof-of-concept' phase, putting in the trial pens from June 2025. This is when it starts to get exciting from a farming point of view - building a smaller-scale pilot farm so that we can trial new infrastructure while monitoring the welfare of our salmon, to ensure they can thrive," Carl says.

Blue Endeavour, when fully operational, could generate NZD$300 million in new revenue per annum. Regional economies will benefit from growth in supporting infrastructure and services required, such as boar servicing, and skilled jobs in farming, engineering, processing and more.

Carl describes New Zealanders' support for this kind of aquaculture as being "incredibly important" to NZKS. "New Zealanders love their Kaimoana, but not everyone is able to catch it for themselves and for their families. Salmon is a highly nutritious source of healthy protein and consumers are also starting to appreciate that farmed salmon has a low carbon footprint compared to many other animal protein sources.

"We have never taken the support we have for our products and what we are doing for New Zealand aquaculture for granted. This drives us to continuously improve our environmental footprint across the company, and was a motivator during the past nine years of dialogue and consultation to get the green light for Blue Endeavour.

"While we have some way to go until Blue Endeavour is fully operational, today is a day for our company to celebrate the successful completion of this chapter," Carl says.

Grant Lovell, NZKS General Manager of Aquaculture, describes the open ocean as "an exciting opportunity and the next logical step for New Zealand's aquaculture industry."

"When we look to the open ocean we are looking at the future for salmon farming in New Zealand - in cooler, deeper waters. It is a bit of a new frontier for our aquaculture industry - but one that we are entering one step at a time, backed by science and evidence-based decision making," Grant says.

During an extensive planning phase, NZKS undertook comprehensive assessments of the environmental effects and applied independent science from the Cawthron Institute, SLR Consulting and Roberson Environmental.

"Putting fish pens out in the open ocean is not for the faint hearted. We will be working in a dynamic environment, with waves up to 10 metres high - anyone that has caught the Cook Strait ferry knows what we are talking about.

"We will be trialling technologies and investing in mooring grid infrastructure to ensure we are able to adapt to the Cook Strait conditions" Grant says.

For more information, visit HERE.

The Aquaculturists

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