Sustainable aquaculture: How Pacific Reef Fisheries raised the bar for sustainable prawn farming

Nestled beside the tropical waters of the Great Barrier Reef, Australian prawn producer, Pacific Reef Fisheries, is acutely aware of the importance of treading lightly on this fragile marine ecosystem. Established in 1998, Pacific Reef Fisheries now produces over 1,000 tonnes of premium farmed black tiger prawns each year – representing around 10% of Australia’s total domestic prawn production.

As a leader in sustainable aquaculture in Australia, Pacific Reef is proving that prawn aquaculture can thrive in harmony with nature. Its operations are based in Ayr, about 90km from Townsville and in the heart of Australia’s sugarcane region.

Bastien Finet, Aquaculture Manager for Pacific Reef, explained, “Our 96-hectare farm is on the outskirts of mangrove areas – which are natural nurseries for prawns in the wild. It means we can mirror their natural life cycle.”

Black tigers are the biggest native prawns, and relatively niche in the Australian market. At Pacific Reef, they’re grown in one-hectare earthen ponds, each capable of producing up to 12 tonnes of high-quality prawns. “We get a commercial crop from a 30–40-gram animal in about four to six months,” said Bastien.

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The rising demand for sustainable Australian seafood

As consumers become more affluent and environmentally conscious, demand for sustainable aquaculture products is on the rise. The Food and Agribusiness Growth Centre – FIAL – predicts aquaculture will achieve greater growth in value terms by 2025 than all other protein categories. And the transformation is already underway, with farmed prawns expected to fill demand as wild-caught fisheries face limited expansion opportunities.

Pacific Reef Fisheries is set up to capitalise. Bastien explained the company has always had a vested interest in sustainability, but “Our farm now has the solution to deliver the most sustainable prawns and differentiate us from the commodity players.”

That solution is RegenAqua – a water purification system developed through a decade-long partnership between former owner, Pacific Biotechnologies, and James Cook University (JCU). “Pacific Reef Fisheries allowed Pacific Bio to trial its water purity solution at scale,” said Bastien. And in the process, demonstrate how innovation and ecological stewardship can go hand in hand.

Redefining sustainable prawn production by working with the ecosystem

With over 95% of Australia’s prawn aquaculture operations located in the warm waters of tropical Queensland, managing environmental impact is critical. Strict regulation governs prawn farm effluent discharge, at very low concentrations – far lower than those allowed for other productive industries or sewage treatment plants in the same area. This reflects the need to protect one of the world’s most biodiverse marine ecosystems: the Great Barrier Reef.

While the sustainability bar is already set quite high, Pacific Bio and JCU raised it, with their innovative bioremediation solution.

“Bioremediation refers to the use of either naturally occurring or deliberately introduced microorganisms to consume and break down environmental pollutants, in order to clean a polluted site. Pacific Bio use native macroalgae to strip nutrients from wastewater from polluted marine and freshwater environments, restoring water to ensure it has no net decline on the surrounding environment.

Dean Jerry, Professor of Aquaculture at JCU, described the breakthrough: “They [Pacific Bio] came to us with a clearly articulated problem: how to remove the nitrogen and phosphorus from the wastewater at Pacific Reef Fisheries’ prawn farm, with the objective of having the smallest environmental impact that they could have.”

The answer was Ulva, a fast-growing native seaweed also known as sea lettuce. Rich in nutrient-absorbing potential and perfectly suited to tropical conditions, Ulva thrives in aquaculture systems and helps naturally cleanse the water.

“Seaweed is a very good mechanism for removing very low levels of nitrogen and phosphorus. And it has an enormous capacity to grow very quickly in the right conditions. Aquaculture production, which is rich in nitrogen and phosphorus, and which in the tropics has high light and warm temperatures, provides just those conditions,” said Dean. “Using seaweed to treat the water that comes off aquaculture production is the perfect solution to environmentally manage water quality.”

It’s an innovative production model that Bastien believes builds ongoing sustainability into Pacific Reef Fisheries’ operations. “Instead of releasing wastewater, we’re actually able to bring it back into the system.” That means less need to pump water in from the reef, and as a result, significantly less chance of introducing a biosecurity hazard, such as the highly contagious viral white spot disease, which can decimate farmed prawn populations.

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Collaboration turns “waste into wealth”

But the seaweed is not just doing the dirty work, so to speak, of cleaning the prawn effluent. “It’s also allowing Pacific Bio to turn waste into wealth, by repurposing that seaweed into downstream products,” said Dean.

Bastien explained, “We’ve got big volumes of macroalgae that we wanted to do something productive with. So we collaborated with JCU to develop a process that allows us to harvest the seaweed and extract beneficial nutrients – or ‘biostimulants’.”

The result is PlantJuice, a natural soil conditioner and fertiliser used by cane growers and horticulturalists to reduce their need for synthetic fertilisers and minimise chemical runoff.

Building the future of sustainable aquaculture in Australia

The RegenAqua solution is a cornerstone of Pacific Bio’s success in gaining environmental approval for an expansion at Guthalungra, Queensland. This 800-hectare site already hosts Pacific Reef Fisheries’ advanced prawn hatchery, producing 100 million prawn post-larvae annually to supply both their own farms and smaller operations across the region.

With environmental permits secured, Guthalungra is poised to become a model for sustainable prawn farming in Australia. The site will leverage a suite of SMART aquaculture technologies, from automated water quality monitoring and energy management to precision feed systems, pathogen screening, and selective broodstock breeding, to drive productivity while minimising environmental impact.

Bastien explained, “Australia’s farmed prawn industry is 30 years old, so there’s a lot of old technology. Guthalungra is a great opportunity to drive improvements into the next 30 years. Smart technology would not just improve the crop and the outputs, but keep the environmental footprint even lower.”

So low that just 250 of the 800-hectare site has been earmarked for aquaculture. Part of the rest has been identified for return to Guthalungra’s traditional owners. Bastien explained, “We’ve always recognised the traditional owners as a key stakeholder in our business; we’re on their ancestral lands. So there’s been a lot of talk with the ILSC [Indigenous Land and Sea Corporation] and other traditional owner groups about the development. We’ve already identified land that we want to give back, and we’ve started conversations around providing employment to Indigenous youth.”

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Expansion plan goes beyond Pacific Reef Fisheries – and has government, farmers and investors excited

The Queensland Coordinator-General has gazetted Guthalungra as a prescribed project of economic and social significance. It’s a milestone owed in part to Pacific Bio’s ambitious plan to establish a cutting-edge aquaculture eco-precinct that could revolutionise the prawn aquaculture industry in North Queensland.

Bastien said, “Guthalungra is a big project: we’ve got a big block of land and a big sustainability solution. We want to bring different operators together under our EA [environmental authority], using our RegenAqua approach, to boost farmed prawn production.”

Beyond boosting production, the plan includes building North Queensland’s first seafood processing plant, unlocking value-adding opportunities for the Australian aquaculture sector.

“We’d be creating jobs, returning more value to farmers, and boosting sustainability,” said Bastien. “There’s a real story to tell there.”

To enquire about Pacific Bio investment opportunities, contact Jodie Munro via email: [email protected] or phone: (+61) 3 9086 9926.

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