The Norwegian government has decided to postpone proposed changes to the aquaculture regulations governing its salmon industry.
Norway’s Minister of Fisheries and Oceans Marianne Siversten Næss unveiled a whitepaper in April covering a number of steps the government wanted to take to regulate Norway’s aquaculture industry. Among those policies was an adjustment to how the government would calculate maximum permitted biomass at the company level, tying that directly to the prevalence of sea lice on salmon farms.
“We want the release of sea lice to have a direct cost for the farmers. In this way, it will become more profitable to operate with a low environmental impact. This will provide more accurate regulation of the industry,” Næss said with the release of the whitepaper.
The proposal was reviewed by a joint standing committee on the industry in the Norwegian Parliament, known as the Storting, which determined the proposal isn’t ready to move forward.
The current system uses the “traffic light” system, established for the purpose of sustainable management of aquaculture, which divides Norway’s coast into 13 different production areas. Those areas are classified as either green, yellow, or red based on scientific calculations of the perceived risk of lice-induced mortality on wild salmon numbers.
Norwegian officials have openly referenced intentions to continue developing both the salmon farming industry and the regulations governing it, with former Norwegian Minister of Fisheries and Ocean Policy Bjørnar Selnes Skjæran hinting that the department was working on developing its regulatory system in 2023.
The committee hearing the ministry’s latest efforts said that instead of scrapping the existing system, the government should first take a number of steps, including strengthening biological and technical data, developing a thorough knowledge base on the environmental impacts of aquaculture “including the industry’s actual and relative impact on the Norwegian wild salmon population,” and a number of other steps, including keeping the regulatory framework neutral so small- and medium-sized companies in the industry aren’t adversely affected.
In its recommendations, the Storting committee said it wants a “broader, more diverse, and more forward-looking aquaculture policy” which includes policies for farming low-trophic species such as kelp, mussels, and marine plants “with clear growth targets and access to land, new or strengthened requirements and support for sludge reuse, emission reduction and feed with low environmental impact, and a comprehensive policy for a marine circular economy.”
While the committee did not fully approve the ministry’s change in regulations, it did include some recommendations that accomplish similar goals of rewarding companies that had lower sea lice loads. The committee asked the ministry to introduce a technology-neutral scheme starting in the fall of 2025, where farming in the “red” areas of the traffic light system can be done in reduced capacity if companies can prove they had zero lice emissions at their facilities. The Storting also pushed the government to create a proposal for low-lice emission solutions, which could include automated lice counting.
“The new scheme should come into force no later than 2026,” the recommendations said. “The scheme should replace the current exception rule in the traffic light system, and be designed so that the effect on lice reduction and the strength of the incentive are linked.”
