King prawn

The GSA BAP Farm Standard mitigates many areas of environmental concern in prawn farming, but there are still improvements that could be made. The GSA BAP Farm Standard has criteria in place for production practices that address many environmental impacts. This includes ensuring that depletion or degradation of freshwater supplies is mitigated, water quality criteria provide a regulatory limit for discharges of effluent, and any habitat alteration that has taken place, such as the destruction of mangroves, is historic with verifiable restoration taking place. Juveniles used are also hatchery based, with the exception of extensive pond systems where incidental introductions are allowed. Prawn farms rely on chemical usage and antibiotics are widely used. The GSA BAP Farm Standard has a ban on the use of chemicals that are designated as ‘Critically Important for Human Medicine’. It also has criteria in place that restrict when chemicals can be used, however, there are no limits on the amount of times they can be used per production cycle. There are other potential environmental issues with prawn farming that the GSA BAP Farm Standard addresses that are on a lower scale of ecological concern in prawn farming. This includes disease outbreak and parasite interactions, which may occur but are thought to be at a farm level and do not threaten regional level operations. It also includes the risk of escapes, which have not been found to have established in the wild.  However, problems do still exist with prawn farming. Although GAA BAP addresses many areas of concern, there are still improvements we would like to see made. This includes the use of lethal control of predators, which, although discouraged, is still allowed to take place when necessary.

The GSA BAP Farm Standard has criteria in place to ensure animal welfare and humane slaughter. The GSA BAP Farm Standard outlines practices that are in place to ensure animal welfare including an Animal Health Management Plan. It also details approved humane methods of slaughter.

GSA BAP certified farmed prawns are well managed and management is thought to be fully effective. Management could be improved by the addition of a mandatory Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). This assessment covers all prawns farmed by GSA BAP certification globally. Although the Standard does cover some aspects of strategic environmental planning, auditors must necessarily defer to an array of national and regional regulations, depending on the varying locations of certification-seeking producers. The GSA BAP certification criteria covers the identification and protection of valuable habitats and species, use of land and water resources, use of chemicals, discharges, biosecurity, disease management and species introduction. It does not require that certified farms undertake a formal Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). The Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) certification programme comprises a suite of standards for farms, hatcheries, feed mills and processing plants addressing environmental and social issues, food safety and animal welfare. Benchmarked to GSSI and GFSI and with star ratings (1-4), it uses independent audits to provide assurance along the supply chain.