Fishing

The Federal Environment Minister Ian Campbell has decided not to include the southern bluefin tuna on the threatened species list, according to the news at ABC Online.

The report states that the Minister made the decision on the basis it would not be good for tuna to be listed as threatened despite a recommendation by the Government’s scientific committee to make tuna fishing illegal and that only around 3 per cent of the stocks that existed in 1960 remain. (I would like to see this data – my understanding was that while stocks are low they are not this low.)

Democrats’ environment spokesperson, Senator Andrew Bartlett,has commented, “To just say that it will be detrimental to the survival of the species listed, I think is extraordinary and is a contempt of the law as it stands”.

What I don’t get is how the Great Barrier Reef coral trout fishery that was sustainable gets more and more restrictions placed on it, while the southern tuna fishery which is apparently under pressure is left to operate.

In the case of tuna the Minister has stated, “The future of the industry for communities like Port Lincoln are crucial”. What about coastal Queensland fishing communities?

I have previously commented that southern bluefin tuna (Thunnus maccoyii) is classified as overfished by AFFA. The fishery is shared with Japan, Indonesia, Taiwan, Korea and New Zealand.

The total global catch peaked in 1961 at 81,605 tonnes and was then in general decline for three decades. Since 1990 the total catch has ranged from between 13,231 tonnes (1994) to 19,588 tonnes (1999). Stock assessments suggest that the parental biomass is low but stable and unlikely to recover to target levels unless all countries agree to abide by national allocations as determined by the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna. Australia operates within its allocation, Japan has not agreed to operate within its allocation, and Indonesia does not recognise the Commission.

Maybe the solution is for the Australian government to put pressure on Indonesia and Japan. So why doesn’t Minister Campbell put some efforts in here – rather than jumping up and down over whaling when Minke whales populations (the species the Japanese and Noreweigans want to harvest) are not under threat.

In summary, as I see it, coral trout and minke whales can be sustainably harvested but the Minister opposes whaling and is putting coral trout fishers out of business. The Minister acknowledges problems with the southern bluefin tuna fishery but will do nothing.

I have always been interested in the relative efficiencies of different food production sytems.

I wrote and posted the piece on fishing last night (Let them eat fish)while trying to come to terms with how much money the Australian government is spending to close down a perfectly sustainable fishery – all in response to environmental campaigning driven by a belief we should not fish Great Barrier Reef waters.

The Australian aquaculture industry’s share of the $2.2 billion Australian commercial fishery has been steadily increasing and now represents around 34 per cent,
http://www.abareconomics.com/research/fisheries/fisheries.html .

I guess the trend is to close down ‘wild fisheries’ and eat more from ‘aquaculture’. But is this efficient?

I have been shown around aquaculture facilities and they seem really energy intense. We are taking the pressure off wild populations in building these facilities I am told.

But where is the balance between sustainably harvesting wild populations and energy intense aquaculture?

On 4th July last year the area zoned ‘Green’, and thus off-limits to commercial and recreational fishers in Great Barrier Reef (GBR) water, was increased from 4.5 per cent to 33.3 per cent of the total GBR area. This was the culmination of a hard fought campaign spearheaded by World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

There had been limits on the number of commercial licenses and numbers of fish that could be caught – but this 33.3 per cent represented a massive increase in the actual area off-limits to fishers.

The Federal Government had promised compensation to assist fishermen, related businesses and communities affected by the implementation of the new zoning.

Just yesterday, commercial fishermen said the compensation bill resulting from closures on the Great Barrier Reef could top $100 million. According to ABC Online:

The Federal Government has announced it has already spent more than $40 million buying out fishing licences and supporting businesses affected by the fishing bans.

The Commonwealth says 120 applications have been processed so far and it believes there could be 300 more by the end of the year.

Greg Radley from the Queensland Seafood Industry Association says the total compensation bill will be expensive.

“I would assume that it was somewhere between $60 and $70 million at this stage,” he said.

Alexandra de Blas (ABCRadio National Earthbeat) report in January 2003 that:

Alexandra de Blas: So it’s worth about $50 million in Australia now; what fish do we supply, and to where?

Geoff Muldoon: Since the advent of the trade in 1993, the export of live reef fish from Australia has comprised almost entirely of coral trout. Somewhere between 90% and 95% of all fish that are exported live are coral trout. The trade has increased from around about 100 tonnes per year to about 1200 tonnes per year of coral trout. We’ve seen basically a fishery that was primarily selling frozen fish shift almost entirely to supplying live reef fish. The overall catch of coral trout on the Great Barrier Reef hasn’t actually increased very much at all, in fact it’s remained relatively stable since about the mid ’90s.

Alexandra de Blas: How do our practices here in Australia compare with the practices in Asia and the Pacific?

Geoff Muldoon: Our practices compare very well. Within Australia, fishermen are only permitted to remove coral trout by hook and line techniques, that is, a hook on a handline will be baited with a pilchard, hung over the side of the vessel and the fish will be brought up by the fisherman, kept alive in tanks on the boats, which contrasts very strongly with the cyanide and dynamite fishing and gill net fishing and trap fishing approaches adopted in sort of less developed countries of the world.

Alexandra de Blas: Jeffrey Muldoon, from the International Marine Life Alliance. His organisation and others, are working to ensure that Australia’s standards are adopted around the world.

Australia exports all its fish by air, which reduces mortalities to 2%, a huge reduction on the 50% losses recorded on the transport boats used in Asia.

Australia has traditionally imported relatively large volumes of low value fish and exported small volumes of high value fisheries products, see http://www.abareconomics.com/outlook/PDF/abare_seafood.pdf .

Coral trout are the most heavily line fished species on Australia’s GBR. The annual yield (total line fishery) for the entire GBR (before the increase in Green zone area) had been calculated at 17 kg/km2 by Walter Starck, see http://ipa.org.au/files/IPABackgrounder17-1.pdf, pg 4.

This is very low relative to other Pacific Reefs which average 7,700 kgs/km2 with a sustainable yield calculated at 10,000 kg/km2, see comparison and http://ipa.org.au/files/IPABackgrounder17-1.pdf, pg 5.

I tend to think that government is paying off and retiring fishers who could be out catching fish.

It was the WWF Save the Reef Campaign that really developed my interest in environmental campaigns and through my public criticism of the same I have meet some wonderful characters.

Dr Walter Stark grew up in the Florida Keys and was awarded his PhD at the University of Miami the year after I was born – in 1964.

Walter now lives in Townsville and has a tremendous general knowledge of the world’s coral reefs.

Just today his review article titled ‘Threats to the Great Barrier Reef‘ was published by the IPA. It is an interesting read and includes information on everything from the population dynamics of crown-of-thorn starfish to global warming.

I found the fisheries information particularly interesting.

There exists 20 years of data on coral trout numbers estimated from surveys where divers count individual fish. Not a bad job.

Walter contends that arguing “that the GBR is overfished at an annual harvest of 17 kg/km2, when over a broad range of other Pacific reef areas an average of 7,700 kg/km2 is sustainable, is beyond ridiculous.”

If you have a query and post a comment below, Walter may post a reply.

If you don’t have time now to read the detailed review, On Line Opinion has published a shorter piece which is also a good read.