Tactical Research Fund: Assessment of heavy metals in tropical rock oysters (blacklip and milky) and implications for placement into the Australian seafood market and for Indigenous enterprise development in the NT.

Funded Activity Summary

The aim of the project is to manage an unforeseen event that has arisen in the early staged of facilitating Indigenous tropical edible oyster enterprises in the NT (both wild harvest and farmed). Samples taken in December 2011 from two sites had high levels of some heavy metals in the flesh. Specifically, levels of cadmium and arsenic were above the Food Standards Code MRL’s. The implications of these results for Indigenous organisations planning to sell tropical oysters into Australian markets are unknown. An additional small, but more extensive, sampling program is needed to assess the extent (spatially and temporally) to which heavy metals peck above MRL's in NT tropical oysters.

The project's Industry partner, Mr Ziko Ilac of Darwin Fish Markets, sees this as a high priority issue. He is currently liaising with top-end Darwin restaurants to develop a niche market in Indigenous-produced, fair-trade seafood. His intention is to develop a niche market for small volumes of shellfish and fish, flown in weekly from remote communities when seasonally available. Restaurateurs see great potential in developing an 'NT seafood cuisine experience' for national and international visitors to Darwin using an 'Indigenous produced, fair-trade' marketing strategy.

Professor Karen Gibb, Leader Environmental Analytical Chemistry Unit (EACU), Charles Darwin University has advised that their own data and those of Peerzada et al. (1993) (Env. Monitoring & Assessment 28: 101-107) also showed elevated cadmium and arsenic in oysters collected along the northern coastline. However not all sites were elevated and Peerzada et al. implicated phytoplankton as a source of elevated metals. Before we can make informed decisions about the future of this very promising enterprise we critically need to gain an accurate measure of metals in replicated samples over two seasons and determine if there is an association with metal levels in water and/or phytoplankton.


Objectives:
1. Conduct a sampling survey of the spatial and temporal variability of heavy metals in tropical oysters (blacklip and milky) in the West Arnhem region
2. Assess the implications of results on the development strategy of the oyster enterprise and the sale of tropical oysters into the Australian seafood market
3. Employ Indigenous partners to conduct the shellfish monitoring outlined in this project to develop Indigenous capacity in fisheries sciences and an additional employment steam for Indigenous people

Funded Activity Details

Start Date: 13-05-2013

End Date: 13-12-2014

Funding Scheme: Funding Scheme not available

Funding Amount: $37,796.00

Funder: Fisheries Research and Development Corporation

Research Topics

ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)

There are no FoR codes available for this funding activity

ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)

There are no SEO codes available for this funding activity

Other Keywords

Aquaculture | Contamination | Food Safety | Indigenous | RAC NT | Traceability | Water quality

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