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 moving pretty quickly, with all N1, N2 and N4 symbols being bought out early in 2024. But up to 40 new NX symbols will be available after 1 Feb 2024 to continue netting in the GRB area until 30 June 2027. Unfortunately the existence of the N11 symbol has been conveniently overlooked in the process, with around 370 of still out there in the fishery, plus many hundreds more "as of right" N11 nets out there that can be used by every person with any sort of commercial fishing licence in Qld.
This is a frightening blind spot by Fisheries and the State government and QRFN are working tirelessly to get this glaring and dangerous anomaly addressed before it compromises the whole UNESCO GBR agenda.
QRFN submission to the East Coast Fisheries Taskforce is now published on this site under the "Our Work" tab.
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 moving pretty quickly, with all N1, N2 and N4 symbols being bought out early in 2024. But up to 40 new NX symbols will be available after 1 Feb 2024 to continue netting in the GRB area until 30 June 2027. Unfortunately the existence of the N11 symbol has been conveniently overlooked in the process, with around 370 of still out there in the fishery, plus many hundreds more "as of right" N11 nets out there that can be used by every person with any sort of commercial fishing licence in Qld.
This is a frightening blind spot by Fisheries and the State government and QRFN are working tirelessly to get this glaring and dangerous anomaly addressed before it compromises the whole UNESCO GBR agenda.
QRFN submission to the East Coast Fisheries Taskforce is now published on this site under the "Our Work" tab.