Australia

Overview

While Australia farms several marine finfish that dominate its domestic aquaculture production, GAPI only assesses those species for which a country ranks as a major producer globally. Australia only makes the global cut in barramundi aquaculture, for which it is the fourth-largest barramundi-producing country (2,590 mT in 2007). Barramundi production only accounts for 9% of Australia’s domestic marine finfish aquaculture production. Thus, while Australia’s country score is solely dependent on its barramundi performance, its GAPI score describes only a small portion of its marine aquaculture performance.

Australia’s GAPI score (47) is 12 points lower than the average country score (59). When cumulative impact is assessed, however, Australia’s modest barramundi production plays in its favour relative to other countries with much larger industries and more production under assessment. Australia’s country score improves greatly, from 47 (normalised) to 90 (cumulative), once the relatively small scale of its assessed production is taken into account.