Queensland Conservation asks Qld Government

[BAIT_MAN]

Queensland Conservation asks the next Queensland Government to:
Establish a continuous Marine Park from the NSW border to the NT border. Once established, a comprehensive network of no-take zones should be established in the Park to conserve biodiversity and ecosystem values. (No-take zones should be established in accordance with the IUCN standard of a 20-30% minimum). Where commercial fishers are genuinely displaced by no-take zones, the Government should contribute to the buy-out of fishing licences to avoid displacement of effort. Extend Reef Water Quality Protection Plan (RWQPP) concept to all coastal catchments.
Provide an extra $2 Million in funding for existing marine park management and planning and identification and assessment of new parks.
Establish a network of Dugong Protected Areas in the northern Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area (GBRWHA) through netting closures and expand and strengthen the Dugong Protected Area network in the southern GBRWHA.
Work with the National Oceans Office and the Northern Territory Government to develop the Northern Regional Marine Plan that includes a comprehensive, adequate and representative network of marine sanctuaries which protect 20-50% of all bioregions in highly protected areas.
Introduce a saltwater recreational fishing licence to Queensland state waters. A licensing system would provide revenue for research, education, habitat protection and rehabilitation. It would also improve the ability to communicate directly with recreational fishers and allow accurate measurement of the recreational fishing catch.
Commit $250,000 for research into alternative methods of prawn harvesting. The money should be offered as a research grant and joint commercial fisher/conservation initiatives should be encouraged.
Finalise protection for the critically endangered Grey Nurse Shark’s critical habitat at Wolf Rock, Henderson Rock and Cherub’s Cave and ensure that the remaining three critical habitat sites are assessed as soon as possible.
Undertake an urgent programme in consultation with Indigenous communities to reduce the Indigenous take of dugong and green turtles to enable their protection and recovery to sustainable populations.
In collaboration with coastguard, increase policing of fishing and tourism activities in unpatrolled regions, particularly the Coral Sea.

[dazza]

hi all,
excuse my ignorance, where are the other 3 grey nurse areas that need critical evaluation.
whats the money they will be green zoned under the excuse of "shark protection" different from no take zone, as they are not worried about fish just the gns, when the moreton bay marine park gets reviewed
cheers
dazza

[GES]

Queensland Conservation asks the next Queensland Government to:
Establish a continuous Marine Park from the NSW border to the NT border. Once established, a comprehensive network of no-take zones should be established in the Park to conserve biodiversity and ecosystem values. (No-take zones should be established in accordance with the IUCN standard of a 20-30% minimum).

Introduce a saltwater recreational fishing licence to Queensland state waters. A licensing system would provide revenue for research, education, habitat protection and rehabilitation. It would also improve the ability to communicate directly with recreational fishers and allow accurate measurement of the recreational fishing catch.

In collaboration with coastguard, increase policing of fishing and tourism activities in unpatrolled regions, particularly the Coral Sea.

Well, how about that !!!
Recreational fishers to pay licence fees to fund having their fishing areas further reduced, more heavily policed, fund research projects designed to restrict fishing and close even more areas down, fund rehabilitation of habitat areas destroyed by industry and Government failure to manage the environment in years past, have their catches monitored (most likely to give reason for further cuts being imposed on their catch)

What a great idea!!

GES

[Adamy]

This is my favorite part:

establish a network of Dugong Protected Areas in the northern Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area (GBRWHA) through netting closures and expand and strengthen the Dugong Protected Area network in the southern GBRWHA.

Does that mean they want to fence the dugong in???Is that the worlds dumbest idea or what!! Of course if you really think about it the places they will want to fence off will be all the go slow areas plus a "corridor" for the dugong to travel from place to place... no need for no-go zones or no take zones or green zones or any zones the whole -place would be "netted" off.

Someone please tell me that this isnt what they are talking about here!!

Adam

[Hornblower]

Queensland Conservation asks the next Queensland Government to:

Introduce a saltwater recreational fishing licence to Queensland state waters. A licensing system would provide revenue for research, education, habitat protection and rehabilitation. It would also improve the ability to communicate directly with recreational fishers and allow accurate measurement of the recreational fishing catch.

Commit $250,000 for research into alternative methods of prawn harvesting. The money should be offered as a research grant and joint commercial fisher/conservation initiatives should be encouraged.

Undertake an urgent programme in consultation with Indigenous communities to reduce the Indigenous take of dugong and green turtles to enable their protection and recovery to sustainable populations.

[Hornblower]

[quote author=Shane Boese link=1158649595/0#0 date=1158649595]Queensland Conservation asks the next Queensland Government to:

Introduce a saltwater recreational fishing licence to Queensland state waters. A licensing system would provide revenue for research, education, habitat protection and rehabilitation. It would also improve the ability to communicate directly with recreational fishers and allow accurate measurement of the recreational fishing catch.

Commit $250,000 for research into alternative methods of prawn harvesting. The money should be offered as a research grant and joint commercial fisher/conservation initiatives should be encouraged.

Undertake an urgent programme in consultation with Indigenous communities to reduce the Indigenous take of dugong and green turtles to enable their protection and recovery to sustainable populations.

[/quote]

Must apologise for the first post - I don't know how I entered that in error without the comments...

The first point I want to make in relation to the licenses is the same as GES. What a hide, and they obviously want to make it mandatory for us to record and report all of our catches, otherwise it would be usless to them. But further to that point, what happens when the data they collate from our catches indicates that it doesn't back up their arguments about "No take" zones and further closures - we will all be branded a bunch of liars and lawbreakers for not reporting our full catch. They are placing us in a no win situation and still it doesn't address those that do the wrong thing. What will have changed for them - NOTHING > > >

My next point is that $250 000 for prawn research will get them nowhere, not even the land on which to do this research, let alone all of the monitoring equipment and resources they would need to do it. It seems that this is a smokescreen only to facilitate a level of authenicity to their claims. It seems that they should learn first to research real estate before they throw a token figure like that. Ask any Prawn farmer how much they spent in setting up their operation, they will tell you that $250 000 - even if you had the land and the tanks and dams already set up is a total nonsense.

And on the last point of the dugong - Good Luck trying to get the indigenous population to limit their ctach of turtle and dugong. They are not seriously suggesting that the few indigenous people who still carry out the tradition of eating these creatures, are having an adverse impact on their numbers. If this is so then Dugong and Turtle should have died out of our waters within the first ten thousand years of their occupation of Australia.

These people have totally lost the plot and are no closer to reality then I am a chance of going to the moon. I have said it before and I will say it again, academics, with all those letters after their names - it doesn't matter how you rearrange them, those letters will always spell "IDIOT" and this press release is a classic example.

Over and Out

[Jeremy]

And on the last point of the dugong - Good Luck trying to get the indigenous population to limit their ctach of turtle and dugong. They are not seriously suggesting that the few indigenous people who still carry out the tradition of eating these creatures, are having an adverse impact on their numbers. If this is so then Dugong and Turtle should have died out of our waters within the first ten thousand years of their occupation of Australia.

Over and Out

This is not a logical arguement Hornblower. You are forgetting that even 100 years ago, turtle and dugong were hunted by dugout canoe and spear etc. Now they use outboard powered boats which are much quicker and have a longer range. Not sure whether they are allowed to use guns, bows or whatever now. Point is, hunting techniques are now far more efficient.

I saw some figures on here a while back estimating the indigenous turtle and dugong harvest annually. Hell of alot more than what was estimated to be due to boat strikes.

Jeremy

[fishingjew]

Craig Bohm is the AMCS conservation member on the management advisory committee of the commercial Gillnet Hook and Trap Fishery, QLD Fishing Industry Development Council and Fisheries Reef Advisory Committee for the Great Barrier Reef. Craig has also worked extensively on the development of Australia's Oceans Policy, implementation of the Strategic Fisheries

ISN,T IT GOOD TO KNOW THAT WE HAVE THESE INTELLIGIBLE PEOPLE SITTING ON ADVISORY COMMITTEES WITH OUR INTERESTS AT HEART

Might add Craig was a Zookeeper who came to AMCS from the Marine and Coastal Community Network, where he worked as the NSW Coordinator for over 7 years.

You would think sitting on these Committees they would be well aware of the problems prawn fisheries of northern Australia are facing to put such a ridiculous sum of $250 000 for prawn research. There was a landline report on the weekend about this Future of prawn fishing in doubt. They went on to talk about prawn farming and how they could not compete against farm prawns - overseas farm prawns especially with cheap labour they just can't produce them cheap enough to compete against this opposition. and also the red tape they have to go through to start a farm .Those that did wish they hadn,t .

Quote off the site

The reality is that it's not gonna be the sustainability of the prawn stock, it's gonna be the sustainability of the fishermen to go and catch it because, you know, eventually it's going to get to the stage where they're just too expensive to do it, so it won't be viable.



The situation is viewed with so much concern that the Federal Government has stepped in and announced a major restructure of prawn fishing from the Kimberley across to Cape York.


link

http://www.abc.net.au/landline/conte...6/s1741661.htm

[lefty_green]

This is my favorite part:

establish a network of Dugong Protected Areas in the northern Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area (GBRWHA) through netting closures and expand and strengthen the Dugong Protected Area network in the southern GBRWHA.

Does that mean they want to fence the dugong in???Is that the worlds dumbest idea or what!! Of course if you really think about it the places they will want to fence off will be all the go slow areas plus a "corridor" for the dugong to travel from place to place... no need for no-go zones or no take zones or green zones or any zones the whole -place would be "netted" off.

Someone please tell me that this isnt what they are talking about here!!

Adam

I think they mean closing areas to netting?

[lefty_green]

This is my favorite part:

establish a network of Dugong Protected Areas in the northern Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area (GBRWHA) through netting closures and expand and strengthen the Dugong Protected Area network in the southern GBRWHA.

Does that mean they want to fence the dugong in???Is that the worlds dumbest idea or what!! Of course if you really think about it the places they will want to fence off will be all the go slow areas plus a "corridor" for the dugong to travel from place to place... no need for no-go zones or no take zones or green zones or any zones the whole -place would be "netted" off.

Someone please tell me that this isnt what they are talking about here!!

Adam

I think they mean closing areas to netting? Not putting up nets to keep the dugongs in

[Adamy]

Ok... that seems to make sense - I suppose... netting enclosures are different to netting closures - but what reported evidence do we have that dugong are getting caught in nets?? What are the stats for mortality due to netting? If we lose a couple of dugong per year due to nets - then its sad - but the trade off for netting closures is no local fresh seafood - more basa and crap from overseas.

Nothing surprises me about the greens - IF they did propose that we fence off the bay - then that wouldnt surprise me either....They want the place to be like a zoo - look but dont touch. They are totally irrational as far as I'm concerned... and so I agree with all the comments made by Hornblower, Jew, GES etc.

[lefty_green]

What are the stats for mortality due to netting? If we lose a couple of dugong per year due to nets - then its sad - but the trade off for netting closures is no local fresh seafood - more basa and crap from overseas.

Interesting. A rec fisher that doesn't want to see the end of commercial netting in Australia or Moreton Bay? I am amazed that when there is talk of spatial closures, rec fishers jump into bed with commercial fishers to provide a very vocal objection. However, rec fishers are quick to blame commercial fishers for the decline in fishing throughout Queensland and especially Moreton Bay.

[seatime]

Not too many netters in the bay would use mesh sizes big enough to snare dugong.
If there was one caught alive, the first thing they'd do is lift the line and let it out, pretty hard to retrieve a net with a dugong in it.
Sounds like another far fetched claim from AMCS.

Incidently, I saw a small pod? today, 3 adults and 1 calf in Tingalpa Ck off Mooroondu Pt. They looked very content and were swimming into the creek on an ebbing tide?

regards
Steve.

[jim_farrell]

Lefty, in the last month you have not produced or said anything that stands up. Everything you say is heresay, not true or spun. Even the reports you produce state they are based on estimates and guesswork.
You just spun adams comment that a point of view has changed in regards to rec Vs pro. Unless you can quote adam as saying that pro's are responsable the decline of fish stock, he hasn't changed his point of view but believes both are sustainable if properly managed. Some people say pro's are to blame, some say rec's and some say there are no one is to blame because there is no evidence that there is a problem.

At the end of the day, until figures can be produced to show that we take more than is naturally reproduced, your argument will never hold water. You cannot tell me the population of any fish in QLD, can you? Therefore you cannot tell me what percentage gets harvested. For all you know, every rec in qld could double his catch per annum and still not effect the sustainability of the fishery.
Now before you spin that, I didn't say we could double it without it having an effect, just that you don't know if we are doubling .05% of the fishery or 10% or bla bla bla.

I will complement you on you not getting personal throughout this debate.

Jim

[seatime]

I will complement you on you not getting personal throughout this debate.

Jim

flick, have you read lefty's personal remarks on the 'science behind the proposed closures' thread.

regards