When a fiery parliament debate erupted this week about Tasmania’s salmon industry, support for the endangered fish at the centre of the fight – the Maugean skate – came from an unlikely corner.
Hours before the Albanese government’s controversial legislation to protect fish farming in the state’s Macquarie Harbour passed on Wednesday, global star Leonardo DiCaprio weighed in.
“URGENT: This week the Australian government will decide the fate of Macquarie Harbour and has an opportunity to shut down destructive industrial non-native salmon farms, protecting the Maugean Skate,” he wrote in a post to his 60.4 million Instagram followers.
The shallow estuary off Tasmania’s coast was one of the most important places in the world, DiCaprio said, and “essential for the planet’s overall health and the persistence of biodiversity”.
The actor regularly uses his platform to post about conservation concerns in many places around the world – and it’s not the first time he has highlighted the plight of Australia’s threatened species.
Earlier this month, he warned clearing in Western Australia’s jarrah forests for bauxite mining, approved by the federal government, would affect species including the endangered woylie and the red-tailed black cockatoo.
He has repeatedly raised awareness of threats to koalas, and last year, called on the Australian government to end native forest logging to protect the breeding habitat of the critically endangered swift parrot in Tasmania.
He also drew attention to Guardian Australia reporting on land clearing in Queensland, writing in a post: “Australia has the highest rate of mammalian extinctions in the world … The only way to protect the hundreds of threatened Australian forest species is to end native forest logging.”
But how involved is the actor and conservationist in the decision to post on these topics to his personal profile?
More than people might expect, according to scientist Janice Chanson, the Australasian manager of Re:wild, the conservation organisation co-founded by DiCaprio.
“He does 100% have the say on whether the post goes up,” Chanson said. “He is very engaged and he is very informed.”
Re:wild, which works on conservation projects around the world, was founded in 2021 when Global Wildlife Conservation, a scientist-led environment organisation based in the United States, merged with the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation.
DiCaprio sits on Re:wild’s board, whose membership includes Razan Al Mubarak, the current president of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). According to Chanson, DiCaprio “speaks to our CEO on a daily basis” and has attended many field trips.
Re:wild has staff based in Australia, where it partners with other conservation organisations to support the creation of protected areas, land restoration and species recovery.
The organisation regularly creates social media posts on local issues, which a US-based communications team passes on to DiCaprio “to choose if he wants to engage on that particular topic”, Chanson said.
She said Re:wild’s Australian work focuses on two goals: ending native forest logging and helping Australia meet its commitment to zero new extinctions.
“The Maugean skate is very much at the forefront of the zero extinction target,” she said.
“Australia has made that commitment. We’re here to help Australia meet that commitment. Unfortunately what’s happening to the Maugean skate is flying in the face of that.”
For months, Re:wild had been working to have the skate’s Macquarie Harbour habitat declared a key biodiversity area, a global program that supports identification and conservation of the world’s most important places for species habitats.
It had posts prepared for a potential announcement. Then on 20 March, news broke that the Labor government planned to rush through legislation to protect salmon farming in the harbour, which threatens the skate’s survival, in the final week of parliament.
Chanson said Re:wild decided to bring its posts forward, publishing an urgent message on its own Instagram account, and the communications team asked DiCaprio if he would share it on his own page.
“The urgency came when we stressed it’s in parliament right now,” she said. She only realised he had acted on the request “15 minutes after he had posted”.
The federal government has faced criticism during this term for delays to promised environmental law reforms that a statutory review five years ago found were necessary in response to the failure by successive governments to protect Australia’s unique wildlife and habitats.
During debate over the Tasmanian legislation, Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young waved a dead salmon in the Senate, accusing the government of selling out its environmental credentials for “rotten, stinking extinction salmon” on the cusp of an election.
The passing of the bill drew condemnation from environment groups and prompted dismay from the Labor Environment Action Network.
As the federal election was formally called on Friday, former Greens leader Bob Brown said the environment had become “the sleeper election issue, awakened by this week’s uproar in parliament”.
“By ramming through protection for the polluting Atlantic salmon companies in Tasmania, both [Anthony] Albanese and [Peter] Dutton have catapulted the environment back into the headlines,” he said.
