LUNENBURG, N.S. -- Nova Scotia's Liberal government has released new aquaculture rules and is creating an agency to regulate the approval of new aquaculture licences.

Fisheries Minister Keith Colwell said Monday the rules create an independent Aquaculture Review Board, and also provide the industry with a fresh set of regulations to follow when they expand or transfer ownership.

Colwell said in a news release the province is taking into account recommendations from a report prepared by Dalhousie University legal experts Meinhard Doelle and Bill Lahey regarding the $60 million industry.

The province says on its website that it will start accepting new applications next year and in those instances it will be up to the independent review board to hold a public hearing to approve or deny the applications.

The website also says each person speaking at the hearing will be allowed to speak for a maximum of six minutes.

In cases where a licence has been issued in the past, owners apply directly to the provincial Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture which does an internal technical review and invites written submissions from the public.

The department says it is introducing mandatory reporting of fish diseases.

The province has had a moratorium in place on new aquaculture ventures, but the fisheries minister has said he hoped the province would see the industry develop under the proposed changes.

Ray Plourde of the Ecology Action Centre said the new regulations are an improvement, but they fall short of the kind of regulatory regime envisioned under the Doelle-Lahey study.

"They (the regulations) are significantly watered down," he said.

"The goal was to restore public confidence and I don't think it will do that."

He said the original study called for explicit regulations creating physical separation between marine-based aquaculture and salmon rivers and known salmon migration routes.

Plourde said he's disappointed with the wording of the regulations designed to protect wild salmon, calling them "too general."

The environmentalist also said he would have liked to have seen the department create a mechanism to rule out some areas for potential aquaculture development.

Plourde said he questions allowing only six minutes per speaker at public hearings, and adds he would have liked the review board to cover more than just new licences.