A group of protestors from Grassroots Action Network Tasmania (GRANT) and Tasmanian Alliance for Marine Protection (TAMP) today held a peaceful protest outside of The Salmon Shop in Salamanca Square, a stockist of Tassal’s Tasmanian Salmon.
The community members temporarily littered the outside of the store with a large collection of marine debris dumped by one of Australia’s largest farmed salmon companies, Tassal.
The intent of the visual demonstration was to highlight the tremendously destructive nature of Tasmania’s industrial salmon farming industry. “In the depths of Tasmania’s coastal waters exist the product of a catastrophic industry, out of sight to most Tasmanians. People have the right to know about the immense damage it is causing to both environmental and human health. Polluting the sources of our drinking water, littering our seas and coasts with thousands of tonnes of plastic marine debris, causing marine dead zones, as well as major breaches of animal welfare. We must shed the truth on Tasmania’s toxic secret,” said Amelia Cromb, a community organizer at Grassroots Action Network Tasmania.
The protest was held to coincide with the release of Richard Flanagans latest expose ‘Toxic’, which exposes the dark underbelly of Salmon farming in Tasmania. “We must call out the damage this industry is doing to our ecosystems and the welfare of environmental, animal and human life. We are in a climate crisis and cannot afford the existence, let alone expansion, of a decimating industry that is only exacerbating the ecological collapse we are facing. We must preserve the precious wildlife we have left,” said Amelia Cromb.
Both groups are calling for a moratorium on all expansions of salmon farming in Tasmania, as well as a complete reform into the industry, to look into the damaging effects it is having on our greater Tasmanian community.
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