East Coast Inshore Fishery
The East Coast Inshore Fishery (ECIF) has been a source of concern and conflict for both the recreational and commercial fishing sectors for decades. Commercial licence and symbol buyouts over the period have proved less than successful, except for many savvy commercial netters who have made a financial bonanza from them. All promises by Fisheries and governments to reform the netting sector have failed to get off the ground, while the recreational fishing sector has borne the brunt of reductions in their share of the harvest over this same period. The result has been a blatant reallocation of the available resource from the recreational sector to the commercial sector.
Things started to change around 2014 when for the first time in history, Queensland had a Fisheries Minister who understood the issues and was prepared to step in and direct his department regarding what needed to be done - much to their dissatisfaction it must be said.
Net Free Areas (NFA;s) had been recommended by the Burns Enquiry way back in 1993, but nothing had ever eventuated unfortunately. ALP Minister Bill Byrne (no relation to Tom Burns of course) went out on a limb and directed that three new Net Free Areas would be established on the East Coast before the end of 2015!
You would have thought the world was about to end and there were some pretty unsavoury things done against the Minister and his family and anyone else who publicly supported the idea at the time. But the Minister stood firm despite it all and oversaw the implementation of the new Net Free Areas in late 2015. The success of this brave initiate is now there for all to see, with these areas attracting anglers from all over the state and nation, significantly contributing to the economies of those areas.
But the legacy extended much further. Minister Byrne, with support from his colleague Tim Mulherin from Mackay, designed the "Sustainable Fisheries Strategy 2017-2017" that has the potential to finally introduce some World Best Management Practice reforms into the ECIF, including many of the initiatives QRFN and other groups have been calling for, for decades.
It was no real secret that some key players inside the department didn't support the new Strategy and the Working Groups formed to advise Fisheries were struggling to get traction unfortunately.
UNESCO intervenes
Climate change and impacts on the iconic Great Barrier Reef were receiving negative international media and pressure rapidly grew on the Federal Government to do something or risk seeing our reef declared "in danger" by UNESCO. There would have been endless closed door meetings at the Federal level to look at what it could do to appease UNESCO.
The Green movement saw the opportunity and raised serious issues with the government regarding the negative impacts commercial netting was having on numerous threatened and endangered species that inhabit GBR waters. These included dugongs, turtles, sawfish and Scalloped hammerhead sharks for example..
We received unofficial advice that the Feds were seriously looking at buying back a significant number of east coast netting licences and that a very large amount of money was being allocated for this purpose. Needless to say we found it hard to keep this exciting info under our hats, but we did. Then we were informed that an announcement from the Federal Minister was imminent regarding a net buyout.
When it came though, it exceeded our most optimistic hopes. There was $160,000,000 on the table for removing all large mesh gill nets from the east coast and introducing real time on-water monitoring of the fishery moving forward.
WOW!!!!!!!
Things are now moving very quickly, with a date of the end of 2023 published when all existing N2 nets will be removed, along with a percentage of N1 nets, with the remainder to be gone by the end of 2027. A Taskforce of high flyers has been convened to recommend to government how this momentous initiative can be designed and delivered. QRFN have provided a very detailed paper of how we see this being structured and flagging some pitfalls associated with implementation that could come back to bite them if not factored into the plan from the beginning. We aim to publish our paper on this site as soon as we feel it prudent to do so.
We support the fair compensation of all permanently displaced commercial netters as a result of this initiative.
True to form, Fisheries are bending over backwards to find ways of helping the displaced fishers to remain in the fishery, including alternate apparatus and new fisheries. This comes with "very long hairs attached" and the last thing anyone wants to see is sacrificing one fishery to save another one. We are watching this one very closely.
We will be posting regular updates on this site as things progress. Watch this space!
Things started to change around 2014 when for the first time in history, Queensland had a Fisheries Minister who understood the issues and was prepared to step in and direct his department regarding what needed to be done - much to their dissatisfaction it must be said.
Net Free Areas (NFA;s) had been recommended by the Burns Enquiry way back in 1993, but nothing had ever eventuated unfortunately. ALP Minister Bill Byrne (no relation to Tom Burns of course) went out on a limb and directed that three new Net Free Areas would be established on the East Coast before the end of 2015!
You would have thought the world was about to end and there were some pretty unsavoury things done against the Minister and his family and anyone else who publicly supported the idea at the time. But the Minister stood firm despite it all and oversaw the implementation of the new Net Free Areas in late 2015. The success of this brave initiate is now there for all to see, with these areas attracting anglers from all over the state and nation, significantly contributing to the economies of those areas.
But the legacy extended much further. Minister Byrne, with support from his colleague Tim Mulherin from Mackay, designed the "Sustainable Fisheries Strategy 2017-2017" that has the potential to finally introduce some World Best Management Practice reforms into the ECIF, including many of the initiatives QRFN and other groups have been calling for, for decades.
It was no real secret that some key players inside the department didn't support the new Strategy and the Working Groups formed to advise Fisheries were struggling to get traction unfortunately.
UNESCO intervenes
Climate change and impacts on the iconic Great Barrier Reef were receiving negative international media and pressure rapidly grew on the Federal Government to do something or risk seeing our reef declared "in danger" by UNESCO. There would have been endless closed door meetings at the Federal level to look at what it could do to appease UNESCO.
The Green movement saw the opportunity and raised serious issues with the government regarding the negative impacts commercial netting was having on numerous threatened and endangered species that inhabit GBR waters. These included dugongs, turtles, sawfish and Scalloped hammerhead sharks for example..
We received unofficial advice that the Feds were seriously looking at buying back a significant number of east coast netting licences and that a very large amount of money was being allocated for this purpose. Needless to say we found it hard to keep this exciting info under our hats, but we did. Then we were informed that an announcement from the Federal Minister was imminent regarding a net buyout.
When it came though, it exceeded our most optimistic hopes. There was $160,000,000 on the table for removing all large mesh gill nets from the east coast and introducing real time on-water monitoring of the fishery moving forward.
WOW!!!!!!!
Things are now moving very quickly, with a date of the end of 2023 published when all existing N2 nets will be removed, along with a percentage of N1 nets, with the remainder to be gone by the end of 2027. A Taskforce of high flyers has been convened to recommend to government how this momentous initiative can be designed and delivered. QRFN have provided a very detailed paper of how we see this being structured and flagging some pitfalls associated with implementation that could come back to bite them if not factored into the plan from the beginning. We aim to publish our paper on this site as soon as we feel it prudent to do so.
We support the fair compensation of all permanently displaced commercial netters as a result of this initiative.
True to form, Fisheries are bending over backwards to find ways of helping the displaced fishers to remain in the fishery, including alternate apparatus and new fisheries. This comes with "very long hairs attached" and the last thing anyone wants to see is sacrificing one fishery to save another one. We are watching this one very closely.
We will be posting regular updates on this site as things progress. Watch this space!
