Hook Line and Sinking

[rocklobster]

Hello eveyone , I was wondering how many members watched the program on the ABC s Landline called Hook line and sinking . It focused on the moves by Federal Minister for fisheries, Tony Burke who if you didnt know has implemented new green zones within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. The program mentiones a green group called the Pew Group who are a very wealthy American green anti fishing foundation who for many years now, largely unknown the the Australian public, have been trying to sanction off more and more of our fishing areas. For those that can remember , GBRMPA told Queenslanders they were closing large amounts of popular fishing areas were decisions that were influenced by this green Pew group . This group are a one sided organization that are solely focused on the total closure of all the waters in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park . They have been slowly over a period of years chiseling away behind the scenes influencing uninformed politicians into hair brained decisions that are affecting not only the lively hoods of many professional fisherman but also the fishers in the recreational sector . I would encourage everyone to watch this program from Landline November in the archived section because one day you will wake up and fishing in our free country will be no more. Where possible, send an email of complaint about these decisions to Tony Burke . I am also wondering how we are allowing drilling for oil and gas in these areas and allowing oil and coal tankers to travel through the Barrier Reef . One mistake similar to the Exon Valdez and the reef will be damaged forever. For the record ,I am as much of a conservationist as the next bloke but i wish these green groups and especially the american ones would clean up there own back yard first and stay away from here .

[tunaticer]

One thing there is never a shortage of is radical eco-heroes that get more attention than reality deserves.
I think that the whole media industry needs to look at what it's end results are rather than it's instant $ revenue. That just aint gonna happen tho.....

The Pew group are dangerous to our way of life in the future that much is certain.

Also what amazes me is the perception that the GBR is a static, ever growing life form. It is not and has never been a constantly growing environment. It has always suffered growth spurts in areas and die backs in others that have occurred naturally even before man found it. Some of the events in it's history are massive that make our human interference seem entirely trivial. We crack it big time when a ship hits several hundred metres of one small reef (fair enough there was some serious error and someone to blame for that) but it doesn't even appear as a pin prick on the map for some of the die backs that occur naturally. Remember the massive news of the 1970's when the crown of thorns starfish was exposed as killing off masses of reef? It is still out there still doing it's thing and a decade or so later the reef renews itself with new growth and new colonies built on the old dead structure.

All we can really do is clean up the mess whenever an event takes place as fast as we can to minimise damage control, outside of that there is not a lot that can be done. Turning it entirely into greenzone will not protect it from its diebacks and will not force it to grow.