Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee, , 8:56:53 to 9:05:17
Analysis of how no-take zones and marine parks affect commercial fishing productivity, displaced effort, and the science behind exclusion zones.
Topics: Fisheries, Marine parks, Food security
Speakers: Speaker 8, Speaker 4, Speaker 24, Speaker 14, Speaker 12, Speaker 17, Speaker 23
through to 2017 before the marine parks were declared. I can nearly bet my bottom dollar that the environment department and the green groups will come back after the same areas they tried to shut down last time and there is zero rationale for for no take in a lot of these areas particularly for pelagic fisheries. So this is the same argument. Why are is anyone listening to this department with respect to the productivity of our marine environment and as Senator Sullivan said over 50% of it in marine parks. So it it it has a it's we have the highest >> proportion of marine parks on the planet of any country. Um, and because environmental groups have got a slogan of 30 by 30, DQ are coming back and trying to >> close more areas that are productive for our food production. >> I mean, this goes to our food
>> security process again. So,
>> I mean, it's a it's
>> just a neverending creep. So uh what consideration have you given to the the impacts of commercial and recreational fishing >> if these if these parks are increased
30%. Yeah, certainly. Um what I would say is as per um other uh work that has been done in relation to marine parks um we will make sure that um DQ in their assessments and and considerations are are considering the information that we have in relation to um commercial uh fisheries including the data that we have. So Abears plays a role in that and I can see my colleagues have joined the
table to >> Yeah. Senator. So just regress and Mr. Galliano can walk you through but we have been engaged in in I guess making transparent some of the impacts that different configurations of marine protected areas might have on on some of our commercial fisheries.
>> Yeah. So >> I mean the southeast southeast stuff just declared recently is bloody terrible because there's all these straight lines that go out that stop >> Yeah. um let's let's stop um fish fishing industry.
>> And we've got we're seeing we're seeing draft maps that follow lines on on land that all of a sudden go out into the sea like what what what fish don't follow these lines like they
>> they don't read maps, >> you know. And we we were talking before about the the pelagic species that head off to South Africa or
>> Anyway, you're going to take us through >> Yeah. I mean some of the the thinking so
that helpful >> way the way we've been involved for the southeast and for the uh reviews about to to be undertaking other marine areas we're involved in uh assessing what the impact might be on commercial fishing catch and GVP. So there might be proposals to expand or change zoning or or whatever and uh using the commercial fishing data that we've got from the jurisdictions and the Commonwealth, we have a contract with Parks Australia to say well that configuration you'll be displacing this much fishing effort and this much GBP and so we're involved in >> they're about accumulating. I mean, >> sure, but but we we are providing them information if they're thinking about a particular proposal, we can provide them information about, well, that's going to impact on this fishery or this fishery by this much. So, we're engaged in that
way. >> Okay. So, so tell me what what impact will this have on commercial recreational fishing.
>> Oh, we haven't we haven't done that work yet. So, early days of that work with
Parks Australia. depending on what their
draft maps are as to depend on where the draft maps are um where the fishing activity is and I suspect that it's not a all at once process as well and so we'll do different bits of work as it goes along. So to answer your broad question about how much 30% I suspect it'll be some time before >> we how much we get to that whether or not we we'll do a certain number of fisheries at a time. Um,
>> yeah, my memory of the the timing of this is a bit hazy. I'm not sure whether Mr. Day knows more about the timing, but I think it's over about the next 18 months or so, but I'd probably need to
defer to colleagues. >> Clearly not that far away. So, what's you know, if this is going to impact upon commercial fishes, are they going to get the same sort of notice that uh that the recreational sorry, the commercial fishes in Western Australia were given in relation to the commercial fishing ban? There's livelihoods. There's huge capital investment. There are jobs. There are communities that rely on on on these industries. They can't just be at the beck and call of a line on a map drawn by a bunch of people that have got no interest in actually the the sustainability of these
industries. Don't discredit but I think the the questions around the implementation and so forth are best answered by DQ but we could and perhaps it's best on those we could tell you the time frame in which we will undertake the assessment and provide them and I think that's the kind
of key input that we're going to bring. >> Does your modeling do do local effect >> or does it do affect that? Um so you you can take the local effect of of the zone the area but the reality is in a fishing sense yeah >> the effect is much broader because it might be you can't pass through this area or something of that which means the whole fisheries impacted. >> Does your modeling look at those things?
We're only looking at the direct um displaced effort from or fishing catch from that particular area. So we we aren't looking at uh you know thresholds and things like that about you know when does a fishery become not viable or any of that sort of thing. We've not we haven't we're not looking at that level of detail. No.
>> Yeah. Or extra rules as you say about
you know whether you can train. >> That's why I asked the question because I just wanted to understand. So you're looking at the direct impact area for >> but the problem is that that isn't real. It is the local but I mean in the last cycle I saw lines on maps were designed to shut down a complete fishery. Now they didn't eventuate because the process was changed. So, and there was a better consultation put in place
>> certainly. But sorry, >> I was just going to say the Southeast Marine Park review those issues were drawn out in consultation with the fishing sector and some changes were made to the boundaries to minimize impact. There were areas where pelagic fishing was allowed in um given it wasn't impacting on the what the marine
park was. Yeah, correct. >> Well, and and it makes no sense. This is this is the this is the frustration. It makes no sense for some fisheries, particularly the pelagic ones, to to put in these restrictions because the fish don't understand a line on a map. They swim through >> tuna, salmon, um small pelagics, which we've had plenty of fights about in this committee. I mean, they they move around and they're not >> um they're not based in the zone.
>> So, just a couple of things. So, sorry.
>> I was just going to add, Senator, to your point, um, we will certainly, we are engaged and will continue to engage with DQ, um, in relation to this work and, um, and drawing out some of those, um, themes that you've you've pointed to, Senator Colbeck, as well. Um, it's really important for us as we engage in this process to maintain resource certainty as much as we can. um and and work through I guess um a balanced outcome as Mr. date pointed to uh we did in the southeastern example
>> outcome needs to be built into the process by the time a fisher or a fishing industry gets to see on a map a line on a map that's having an impact they then have to have the fight to move it that consideration should be made up front that was the problem of the process the first time around and we had
>> one of our interests is to have that have as much as possible kind of our access to information and our understanding of of the dynamics of fisheries um um introduced into the