Story courtesy of Greenpeace Australia Pacific
The Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke has announced new laws that will ban the Margiris super trawler for up to two years. Burke acknowledged overwhelming public concern in reaching this significant decision. Congratulations to the thousands of passionate Australians, community and environmental groups and fishing groups have stopped the Margiris from destroying Australia‘s oceans
Today is a huge day for people power. Federal Environment Minister has announced a ban on the super trawler for up to two years and further scientific investigations before boats like this are approved. This is what we have been calling for and we congratulate the Australian Government on listening to the community and taking action.
“There has been no doubt there has been a massive public focus on this.”
Environment Minister Burke
It was the united action of community members, environmentalists and fishing groups that convinced the government to protect Australia’s fish stocks, marine wildlife and fishing communities.
This victory is testimony to the power of collective will and the importance of standing up for what’s right.st
Because of the donations received by Greenpeace supporters, we were able to:
- Highlight the dangerous flaws in the approval process and the threat to Australia’s fishing communities, fish stocks and marine ecosystems.
- Track the Margiris’ route, raise awareness of its pending arrival and take direct action as it hit Australian waters.
- Publicise the super trawler’s destructive history and present the investigative research Greenpeace had conducted across the globe over many years.
- Reveal the European Union subsidies that keep these over-sized vessels in operation.
- Heighten awareness in threatened regional coastal towns with media advertisements.
- Unite with a unique coalition of groups to mobilise diverse communities, hold rallies and pressure the government.
Looking forward
This is a significant setback for the European super trawler fleet – however the campaign against destructive fishing needs to continue.
The Margiris is just one fishing vessel that is impacting marine ecosystems globally. The global fishing fleet is catching more fish than nature can sustaiJn. In our region, the Pacific faces the threat of over-sized foreign vessels every day.
Today we can celebrate this wonderful victory.
Just to provide some baalance to the news, the Sydney Morning Herald has published a response from Gerry Green representing the owners and mangers of the Margiris - now renamed the Abel Tasman:
OPINION
"The federal government's decision to legislate to give it power to selectively stop the Abel Tasman from fishing is a reaction to the controversy and anxiety stirred up by environmentalists.
Much was said by the Environment Minister, Tony Burke, about public opinion but this was strongly influenced by a sophisticated campaign of misinformation.
All of the claims made about the impact of the Abel Tasman on fish stocks and the wider ecosystem are nonsense and have been dismissed by Australian fisheries scientists and by the government regulator, the Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA).
It is extraordinary that the environmentalists and the government simply dismiss the science that determined the catch limit and throw into question the credibility of the fisheries manager, the AFMA. One politician has gone as far as to question the honesty of AFMA.
The fact is that Seafish Tasmania has met every rule, regulation and request made of us.
The intervention at one minute to midnight in the process sends an awful message to potential investors in Australia to be very afraid. Changing the rules after a business has committed years of time and money into a project is a big risk for investors.
Dashing the hopes of 45 people employed in regional Devonport where jobs are hard to come by is just cruel.
The government can't shirk responsibility for where we are at. It's not as if it just snuck up. The Fisheries Management Act 1991 and the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 set out a clear process for assessing all the environmental, scientific and social consequences of any fishing activity.
Seafish Tasmania has followed this process for the past seven years, working with AFMA and the federal government, including conducting and facilitating all the necessary scientific analysis.
The operating rules for the fishery are contained in the Small Pelagic Fishery Management Plan that was passed by Federal Parliament in 2009. Accompanying that legislation was a document titled The 2009 Harvest Strategy for the fishery that gives the rules for setting quotas. In its preamble, that harvest plan says: “It is likely that large-scale factory freezer trawlers will be used in this fishery.”
So, how were we to read this? How could ministers and other members of Parliament be unaware of what they were passing into law? Since late 2011, Seafish Tasmania has been looking for partners with a suitable vessel to invest in the fishery. We brought representatives of the Dutch fishing company Parlevliet & Van der Plas BV to Australia to meet with AFMA in February this year to gain assurances that the proposed operation would gain AFMA approval.
At this meeting, AFMA assured us that if the vessel was flagged Australian it would be treated the same as any other Australian vessel. That, of course, gave them the confidence to invest and bring the vessel to Australia. Our intentions to bring the vessel have been discussed at numerous AFMA advisory committee meetings before and since that time.
Seafish Tasmania has been fishing mackerel and redbait from its base at Triabunna on Tasmania's east coast for many years. The company has operated in Tasmania since the 1980s. We have an AFMA quota to fish 18,000 tonnes of redbait and mackerel. Our quota has varied between 16,000 tonnes and 25,000 tonnes over the past 12 years, so this current quota is quite unexceptional.
As mentioned earlier, the quota was based on science carried out by the South Australian Research and Development Institute and the Institute of Marine and Antarctic Science at the University of Tasmania, and peer-reviewed by CSIRO. A joint report by seven eminent marine scientists from these agencies confirms that the fishery is sustainable and that the quotas are set more conservatively than world's best-practice guidelines published by international environmental groups – normally no friends to fishing.
The rules for setting quotas in the Commonwealth's Small Pelagic Fishery for mackerel and redbait are closely modelled on the proven approach used in the South Australian sardine fishery, which incidentally has a catch limit of 34,000 tonnes. Unlike the sardine fishery, which is fished in a relatively small area of the Spencer Gulf, the redbait and mackerel fishery covers a huge area from Queensland to Western Australia. This is one reason behind the need for a large-scale freezer trawler. It also reduces the possibility of localised depletion of fish stock.
Simply put, the ship needs to be able to fish throughout the fishery to take advantage of different fishing seasons in different areas rather than concentrating its catching effort within close range of a home port during certain months when the fish turn up.
To operate throughout the fishery, the vessel has to freeze its catch on board. This means that the catch is high-quality, being frozen within hours of capture, and is suitable for human consumption. The largest market for mackerel-like species is in west Africa, where the fish represent a relatively cheap source of protein for people who have few alternative protein sources. Freezing the catch on board is also the main reason why the Abel Tasman is such a large fishing vessel. The vessel is a large floating freezing factory, cold store and home to 45 people, and only about 20 per cent of the vessel is concerned with fishing.
Despite many false claims to the contrary, its mid-water trawl net is roughly the same as other mid-water trawls used in Australia. The potential for accidental bycatch of dolphins and seals is a highly emotive issue. Seafish Tasmania, together with scientists from the Institute of Marine and Antarctic Research in Hobart, has carried out 12 months of research on marine mammal behaviour using underwater video cameras inside the mid-water trawl nets during fishing operations. The lessons learnt from this study were applied to the design of an excluder device that will lead these animals to an escape.
We are confident this device works. But, while we're confident, it was always intended that the operation of the net and the excluder device would be monitored by AFMA observers using underwater cameras. An AFMA bycatch mitigation expert and a European net and excluder design expert would be onboard to monitor the effectiveness of the excluder.
Much of the emotional response to our vessel is due to claims, most of them erroneous, about the vessel's history. The fact is the vessel does not have a personality. It is how it is used now that counts. There is no better place in the world to use a large-scale freezer trawler than in Australia where it is subject to quotas, onboard observers and tough operating conditions imposed by government.
All we wanted, and still want, is a chance to demonstrate that we can fish responsibly and sustainably within the rules."
Gerry Geen is the director of Seafish Tasmania
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/all-we-want-is-to-fish-within-the-rules-20120912-25s9l.html#ixzz26FDEY2ro
