Regulation roadblocks drive pioneering kelp business to South Australia

The owner of Sea Health Products, which she purchased from Narooma's original 'kelp lady' Betty Long in 2015, Ms Lane wanted to trial farming golden kelp in the Eurobodalla region near her Tilba Tilba business.

However, navigating an approval process which places a high level of financial risk on a small business made things difficult, leading Ms Lane to uproot her operation and head elsewhere.

Sea Health are setting up their farm to operate in South Australia while they will focus on restoration projects on the NSW South Coast. The also have their Tilba Kelp Lab.

"We do want to stay connected in NSW and do some restoration projects which we are working on at the moment with some local fishing groups," she said.

"In South Australia we'll set up a farm and we'll do some trials."

The business gets it's kelp off the beach - then washes and processes it to produce a range of products.

These healthy products, including soaps, seasoning and hand cream, are available online, in shops and wholesale. However, making them requires a large supply of kelp (an ongoing issue) to be viable.

Kelp forests on the South Coast, like other regions across Australia, are under threat due to an increase in ocean temperatures.

To keep up with an increase in demand Ms Lane began looking at a 30-hectare farm.

She spent almost $100,000 on a scoping document and consulting fees for environmental background research and was then quoted just under $400,000 to complete the environmental assessment requirements.

Ms Lane said as a new industry she understands the state government needs to create environment regulations, but said the current system is costly and full of risk for a small business owner.

"What they came up with was that it would become the highest level of environmental regulation," she said.

"It's considered a State Significant Development (SSD). That's what Barangaroo is, an airport, a new mine. Quite substantial multi-million dollar operations.

"What we're trying to do is a kelp farm. Trying to grow a native species in a marine environment and it doesn't need freshwater, it doesn't need land, doesn't need fertiliser.

"You get your seed stock, you grow it and then you put it out on ropes and it absorbs nutrients and it grows quite quickly and it provides this sustainable and environmentally valuable product."

The University of Wollongong (UOW) researchers have just completed a 12 month study of the emerging aquaculture industry.

They predicted a bright future on the South Coast but only if the burdensome regulatory pathway is amended.

The research also called for the establishment of research trial sites.

"Regenerative aquaculture is currently constrained by a regulatory pathway to approval that places prohibitive levels of risk on individual proponents." UOW project lead associate professor Michelle Voyer said.

In the meantime, Ms Lane is moving ahead in South Australia.

"We've already secured two fully approved marine lease sites and we're going to undertake some trials very soon," she said.

Instead of requiring businesses to navigate an expensive approvals process, Ms Lane said the South Australian government took the lead.

"They created zones that everyone felt they had a say in," she said. "It's called marine spatial planning, like our land use planning.

"Where I used to live in Tilba, you can't build a 10-story apartment building because it's not zoned for that.

"If NSW were to do some of that marine spatial planning and go yes, if you want to do aquaculture you can do it here as long as you use this kind of gear and you're using native species.

"I think that's where it would be less cost for each individual and less risk."