THE Australian Recreational Fishing Foundation has announced that discussions with the Small Pelagic Fishing Industry Association (SPFIA), the organisation representing the operators of the trawler Geelong Star.
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The Stop the Trawler Alliance meanwhile is calling for a weekend of action and social media campaign around Australia.
ARFF is the national organisation representing the interests of Australia’s recreational fishing community.
According to the www.shipspotting.com the Geelong Star is a 3, 181 tonne, 90m fishing vessel owned by Seafish Tasmania out of Triabunna.
AFFA says discussions had progressed in order to address concerns about the impact of fishing of the small pelagic fishery (SPF) on recreational fishers and the broader community.
Commonwealth Government permission for the Geelong Star to fish the SPF has been granted despite ARFF's legitimate ongoing concerns.
ARFF tabled a proposal to SPFIA on its concerns and how it believes any impacts of industrial scale fishing of the SPF on recreational fishing can be minimised by managing where and when vessels fish and ongoing research into fishing the SPF on the impacts of recreational fishing.
The ARFF proposal recognises that the SPF is a very important fishery for Australia’s recreational fishers.
What happens in the fishery can have impacts on Australia’s recreational fishers now and for the future:
The SPF covers a large proportion of Australia’s coastline including all of our major capital cities and regional centres, from Brisbane, south to Sydney and Hobart, across to Melbourne and Adelaide and Perth.
The SPF covers some of Australia’s most iconic recreational fishing grounds.
“Under legislation for this fishery the Geelong Star can fish within three nautical miles of these population centres and iconic fishing locations at any time of the year,” the ARFF says.
“Small pelagic fish are a major food source within the marine food web that includes key recreational species such as southern bluefin tuna, yellowfin tuna, marlin and kingfish.
“Recreational fishing in Australia generates an estimated $10 billion a year and creates tens of thousands of jobs throughout metropolitan and regional communities. We don’t want this put at risk and there is no reason that it should be.
“We are pleased that the SPFIA is considering our proposal in good faith. “We have established a working group and this group will advance the discussions toward an agreement on where and when the vessel will fish as well as an ongoing research program. We expect an agreement on these issues by the end of next week.”
Sad April Fool’s joke
Stop the Trawler Alliance says if only the Geelong Star’s arrival in Australia had been an April Fools’ joke.
On April 1, the 95-metre industrial factory trawler the Dirk-Dirk, now reflagged as the Geelong Star, arrived in Australia, and it’s starting to fish in our waters right now.
“Unbelievably, the Abbott Government has welcomed this foreign factory trawler, despite huge opposition from recreational fishers, conservation groups, tourism businesses and local communities alike,” the Alliance statement reads.
The Alliance is calling for a weekend of action around Australia to stop the trawler.
Melbourne: 11am Saturday 18th rally at the Victorian State Library
Fremantle: 11am Saturday 18th banner event outside Cicerello's on Mews Road
Hobart: 10am Sunday 19th boat rally on the water or 12noon outside Fish Frenzy at Elizabeth St Pier
Sydney: 5pm Sunday 19th banner event on the beach opposite Havana Beach Bar, Manly
Perth (TASMANIA): 10am Saturday 18th boat towing to rally at Lions Park
Adelaide: Sunday 26th banner event at Birkenhead Bridge, Port Adelaide (note, the weekend after)
For more details on the events visit www.stopthetrawler.net/
The Alliance is calling on participants to take a photo with the ‘Stop the Trawler’ message, and post it on social media using the Stop the Trawler Alliance’s hashtag #StopThisBoatTone or email it to them on info@saveourmarinelife.org.au
“This is the largest factory trawler to be fishing in Australia, and it’s starting to fish in our waters now. But we don't know where or we don’t know what they caught, because the company is protected from providing this information!
“Massive freezer-factory trawlers represent the most extreme excesses of global over-fishing, wreaking ecological havoc in our oceans. We must not let them get a foot in the door.
“Please take part on our national weekend of action to protect our marine life, our fisheries and the future of our local fishing communities. In 2012 we stopped the Margiris, and we can do it again.”
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Industry defends use of trawler
A spokesperson for the Small Pelagic Fishery Industry Association has defended the use of the Geelong Star and provided the following points:
Australians with an interest in sustainability ought to be supporting the Geelong Star.
The Geelong Star, by catching and freezing omega 3 rich small pelagic fish on-board, is turning a resource that was previously processed into fish food into a nutritious and affordable food for humans.
All of our catch of blue mackerel, jack mackerel and red bait will be frozen whole on board and sold for human consumption in Australia and on export markets.
This is taking a resource that was selling for cents for kilogram as fish food in the past and creating a nutritious food for humans worth dollars per kilogram. This is sustainable resource use in action.
The Geelong Star is a magnet for mis-information as radical green groups try to use the vessel to further their anti-commercial fishing agenda.
Communities on the South Coast of NSW with links to commercial fishing should be very concerned about how radical green groups, and recreational fishing leaders with political ambitions in Tasmania, have waged a mis-leading campaign to further their own interests.
The Geelong Star is not a supertrawler and is not the largest trawler and not the first freezer trawler to fish in Australian waters.
The previous Labor Government defined a supertrawler as a vessel over 130 metres and placed a ban on vessels of this size.
Environment Tasmania, as recently as November 2014, petitioned the current Government for the 130 metre ban to be made permanent. Tasmanian Green Senators support a 130 metre ban.
The Geelong Star, at 95 metres, is 35 metres shorter than the accepted definition of a supertrawler (130 metres).
The boat is governed by the same quota system familiar to any commercial fishing operation in Australia. AFMA sets a catch limit, the Geelong Star can only catch its share of the total catch, no more.
The allowable catch is set at 7.5 per cent of the estimated biomass, that means that 92.5% of jack mackerel, blue mackerel and redbait cannot be fished. That means there are hundreds of thousands of tonnes of bait fish available for higher order predators. These predators also switch their diet between these species and other species including lantern fish, which are even more abundant.
A recent major CSIRO study (January 2015) concluded that “none of the key higher trophic level predators in SE Australia such as seals, penguins and tuna has a high dietary dependence on these species.”
The report states that bait fish are highly mobile and predators have to move from food source to food source depending on what is available (ie from redbait to lantern fish).
Importantly, AFMA rules (the Vessel Management Plan) further safeguard against localized depletion by requiring the Geelong Star to abide by a ‘fish and move on’ rule imposed through regional catch limits.
A maximum of only 4 per cent of the quota can be caught in a month in any 30 mile grid established by AFMA around the heavily populated coastline of southern Australia before the vessel has to move on and not return to that grid for a month.
The vessel is the equivalent of a 50 metre trawler, common in the South East trawl zone, with a freezing plant in the middle.
Statement from the Government
Small Pelagic Fishery Industry Association was also keen to get out the statement from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture, Senator Richard Colbeck, who described the Labor/Green opposition to commercial fishing in the Small Pelagic Fishery as a thinly veiled attack on the entire Australian fishing industry.
“The latest science clearly shows the Small Pelagic Fishery can be fished sustainably, but Labor and the Greens appear hell-bent on destroying the fishing industry in Australia and will say absolutely anything in the process,” Senator Colbeck said.
“During the previous debate Labor and the Greens defined supertrawlers as vessels more than 130 metres in length.”
“The Coalition has accepted their definition of a supertrawler and we have enforced a permanent ban on vessels more than 130 metres from fishing in Australian waters. This regulation takes effect this week.”
Senator Colbeck said the Geelong Star is not a supertrawler and falls under every threshold put forward during the previous debate.
“The Geelong Star is less than 100 metres in length and has a storage capacity under 1100 tonnes – significantly less than the Greens definition of a supertrawler as a vessel with a storage capacity greater than 2,000 tonnes,” he said.
“The goalposts keep being moved in this debate and it’s clear that some people just don’t want commercial fishing in Australia, which is frustrating as it is a legitimate and sustainable industry.”
“The Small Pelagic Fishery provides great value to the Australian community and is assessed as one of the most environmentally friendly protein sources on the planet.”
Senator Colbeck said the Coalition is doing as promised by continuing to seek updated science for the Small Pelagic Fishery.
“The latest science shows that the Small Pelagic Fishery can be fished sustainably – revealing continued opposition by Labor and the Greens’ is completely unjustified. It is clear they are not interested in the science and will say anything that fits their anti-fishing industry campaign,” he said.
“Australia’s fisheries are recognised among the best in the world and our fisheries management is based on the best available science. This was reaffirmed in the recent ABARES Fishery status reports which show no solely Commonwealth managed fisheries are subject to overfishing.”
“This Government is committed to a balanced and informed approach to fisheries management. We will continue to make any decisions regarding access to all Australian fisheries based on sound science.”