Insight SBS

[jaybee]

Well I personally beleive the representative for the gbrmp was full of it..she stated the reef was under threat from global warming and bleeching and fishing needs to be stopped to help..correct me here if i am wrong but most of the reef species rely on the corals and algae growths..so if fishing is stopped..the fish will increase and put more pressure on the dying corals and algae from the global warming..mmmm doesnt make sense to me. But they did agree that if fishing is stopped the over bearing pressure on the rest of the reef will devestate it....however the scientist in the end with the mayor of cairns and the ceo of QLD seafoods did agree a better fish management is needed..isnt that what people have been saying on this board these past few months.

[Steve_Ooi]

GBRMPA realise the need to protect the seagrass beds ,turtles, dugongs, softcorals, hard coral, algeas,and so on . but what they fail to see is that the recreational angler has extremely little effect on these areas.

Add up the damage that rec anglers do to seagrass beds, turtles, dugongs, birdlife, and corals... and what do you get... squat
Very little damage compare to the trawlers and the farmland runoff.

Poony

[Vern_Veitch]

GBRMPA wasn't on there. The lady is from World Wide Fund for Nature commonly known as WWF. From my perspective she really put her foot in her mouth at the end calling for 100% closure. The cards are on the table so let the games begin.
I thought Kev Byrne did a great job and we will continue to work with them.
We all agree that fishing pressure needs to come down but where is the money to buy out commercial fishers? We have been going around in circles with this argument for decades. The best outcome for recreational fishers is yellow areas with a few rule changes. Open to ideas on what the rules should be. I suggest 1 line per person plus 2 per boat and limited spear fishing but keen to hear other ideas.
Vern

[krazyfisher]

I have noticed that this is slowly moving from GBRMPA against fishermen to pros and rec. We have to all work together to make this work for all of us No one wants the waters fished out. We have to look after what we have. And I believe that farming has alot to do with declining fish numbers I am in mackay and I can see the river changing with silt, fish kills.There are a lot of factors and alot of these have nothing to do with fisherman, but people like Sunfish etc are atleast trying to do somthing about it unlike to many people that just keep fishing and whinging about less and less fish in the freezer. Lets stop fighting about it and do something about it from writing a letter to becoming part of something like Sunfish, Recfish or do our own part by maybe taking only what you NEED and not what you want.
I am sorry if this post seems heated but all of us are or have been guilty of talking about a problem and not doing anything about it(me included). Something that made me think was that I was talking to someone from sunfish who said that out of 500 or so members in their area less than 5% of these would get involed in the hard yards. The time has come not to sit back and let others solve our problems.
OK I will get off the soap box now ;)

[Kerry]

Jaybee, that was the WWF rep that made those comments and after I picked myself up off the floor I replayed it just to make sure what she said was as stupid as it sounded #:o #:o #:o.

Remind me to take the WWF of my x'mas card list. Oh she was also the one who stated the best place to start was in locking up 100% from scratch, typical of these types.

The GBRMPA alliance rep and some of those counter arguements were simply a load of wallop. Closing off the reef will ultimately improve catches 200 times #:o they'll be big ones (referring to coral trout). And this is supposedly a science person and yet is trying to sell this crap on BIG coral trout, anybody ever heard of ciquatera #:P, how uninformed but hey these scientist's are what GBRMPA are supposedly hanging their hat on.

Cheers, Kerry.

[Kerry]

Repeat of program at 12.30pm today (Friday 9/8).

Cheers, Kerry.

[bugman]

Guys,

I know Imogen Zethoven a bit and have interviewed her myself a few times. She is a very passionate, influential and hard working campaigner for the environment. I support her on many issues. On this one she's got it so wrong.

We face tough opposition here though because she has many friends in the both political and lobby group circles. Many people brush off her comments as completely over the top but she's not silly. Ask for everything and then settle back for a more realistic position while continue to argue for more.

Have a look at this website and see what we're up against here.

http://www.gbr.wwf.org.au/

There are very well organised and very well funded.

We can not afford to dismiss them but we must try to work with them to ensure that recreational fishermna can still use the area. There is no doubt ther main beef is with trawlers. If we work with them maybe they will ease up on recreational anglers and we could tackle commercial operators together.

I'm open for suggestions.

Bugman

[jaybee]

sorry guys missed the introduction the way she was talking i thought she was there to represent the gbrmpa..not to worry..but I really feel she should get her facts right tho..So what happens to all the island operators if this goes ahead..I am sure their biggest percentage of patrons would be there to fish not just lay on the sand.
cheers.

[Kerry]

Unfortuenately it appears that GBRMPA is in carhoots with too many "convienient" groups/organisations.

One can only wonder Why ??? the heads of some certain far north tourist committees (private tourist organisations) are counter signing GBRMPA correspondence in relation to revoking GBRMPA permits that were issued by GBRMPA in the first place.

If GBRMPA issued the permits then why are some of the big boys who head some these committees (apparently in conjunction with GBRMPA hence the counter signing) trying to reduce the number of permits by revoking those from the smaller operators.

GBRMPA appears to be run from/by committees who appear to have some self interests as the primary goal. Many of these committes most have never heard of and tend to be intrenched in the far north.

Cheers, Kerry.

[mick]

things only change for one reason, $$$$$

[Volvo]

Where ya been mick?? give ya call couple of times for trip outside an you were slightly busy??.

[kc]

Having been off line for a couple of weeks (gone fishin') I want to comment on a couple of points raised in this post.

We had a trailer boats rally here to protest the RAP on August 3rd and got 120 boats and cars in convoy which took over an hour to pass through the main street of Airlie Beach and certainly got noticed.

We also noticed some covert GBRMPA staff looking on from afar but I am very doubtful we have made any difference. The outcomes are predetermine and have the full support of Canberra.

There are only 4 federal seats in the whole marine park area and if the Libs are happy to shaft us we would have even less hope with labour who need to align themselves with the greens.

Quiet simpley we are going to get shafted, it is just a matter of how hard we scream and wether we can stop the next round of RAP in a few years which will be pushing for up to 40% (as recomended by their own SSC).

As for Island resorts people do not, in general go there to fish. That figure would be far less than .5 of 1% so don't count on them for help. To the contrary they full support more green zones.

The WWF position is not unlike those put forward the the chairman of AMPTO (association of marine park tourism operators) who wants rec fishing banned in 95% of the park. It should be noted that this person did print a clarification in our local rag last week saying coments he made were his personal opinion not the official position of AMPTO. It is unclear how many others in this powerful organisation share this sentiment but there are certainly plenty.

While I think we will lose this battle we should go down kicking and screaming and at least the "pink" not "green" zone stance. ie one out all out let us take the high moral ground and allowed us to argue from a position of strenght. If Mr Byne had taken this stance on Insight it would have left Imogen fully in agreement with "us" and turn the heat back onto GBRMPA. They can not justify why they want rec fishers out yet continue to allow other commecial exploitation to continue...it is about reef tax not reef protection.

The final points is about the cancellation of permits. In the "early days" permits were issued a bit willy nilly and in recent years, after the moritorium on permits have been coming a bit like taxi licences. Permits which cost $700 are now being sold for $50,000+. The park has a problem in that it issued way more permits than it should have and a great many of these are sitting dormant in desk draws gaining value while never being used and at the other end of the scale tourism operators actually in the business can not grow and expand fleets via GBRMPA and have to buy dormant permits with big profits being made by "smarties" who look at the permits as investments and don't really give a shit who they sell them to.

GBRMPA, along with AMPTO has developed a "use it or lose it" position to combat this issue and on the surface this makes sense. If you are not an operator and are not using your permit than it should be taken away. The "latent capacity" (unused permits) is over the top in numbers and if all permits were used would really create some problems. It is the aim of GBRMPA and AMPTO to remove latent capacity and then be able to control issue of permits (maybe for aditional funds to GBRMPA) not really just the big boys shafting the small ones.

Anyhow, sorry for the long winded post but a lot of shit is going on with this RAP stuff which all spells hard times ahead for rec fisho's

Regards

KC

[Kerry]

KC, so why does AMPTO, which by the way is headed by the big end of the tourist industry have this "twin brother" alliance with GBRMPA and in fact some of the people who head these organisations appear to have the most to gain #???. Who is managing what or who # ??? sounds more like AMPTO "managing" GBRMPA # :( ;D

It really appears as if there's a conflict of interest in some of the issues.

But from your description of previous permit issues basically GBRMPA haven't really "managed" things in the past but now their expecting everybody to believe things have changed #:o

Also for many years apparently many of these so called permits have been mothballed anyway due to native title issues.

Cheers, Kerry.

[kc]

HI Kerry,

You are clearly correct. There is a conflict of interest bewteen AMPTO & GBRMPA. Both really should be on opposite sides of the fence but in fact AMPTO is the tax collector for GBRMPA and exert enourmous pressure over policy decisions. This is clearly not in the best interests of other users of which we are one.

Clearly AMPTO are not interested in protecting the rec fishery.

The latent permits issue is a clear example of poor management in the early days, as is the commercial fishery with 1200 vessels currently licensed to fish in the live trout trade and only 558 fishing(last year) which removed 2098 tonnes of trout. What would happen if all 1200 suddenly joined the slaughter??

Work is in progress with DPI & GBRMPA to cull the trout boat licenses down to about 330 but not cap the catch rate...in fact for all the talk about protecting the fishery and sustainable levels they can not actually put a figure on what is the sustainbale catch rate...1500 tonnes, 1000 tonnes, 500 tonnes....no one can actually say. Surely to christ this should be a starting point and work backwards from there. Here is a little point...last year the total trout take was approximately 1 trout from every 141 square meters of the entire park ie 2,400,000 fish (at average 1kg) from 340,000,000 square meters of area...and a lot of that area is not trout habitat( less than 50%). This is just too much pressure

The native title issue is totally seperate to the latent permits issue. All the permits sitting in desk draws are the ones being targeted...permits are not atually issued until the native title process has aleady been dealt with.

GBRMPA are getting better in this regard and in park management generally. What they have got very wrong is a zoning plan which does not really differenciate between pro and rec users in reef areas (live trout trade) where despite any retoric the pro trout boats are clearly overfishing certain areas (just as rec fishers have overfished species like tailor on Frazer).

Our best outcome would be an increase in modified "yellow" zones or a new zone..lets say purple which is a designated rec only area and have the boffins study the effects compared to green/tourism zones and blue (open) zones. At the end of the day we need to give some ground but not the carte blanche shut out from 90,000 sq k's of the park. Personally I believe we should have a series of increased "pink", "puple or modified yellow" and also have some pro only fisheries so these guys get a fair go as well and phase out all trawling as soon as possible, even if we have to pay for this with a license fee. I have seen first hand eveience of bycatch which just can not be allowed to continue. Excluder devices might work for tutles but do bugger all to save fingerlings.

Cheers

kc

[Vern_Veitch]

kc,
well done on the boat rally. it is a shame the other 90% of boat owners will not get off their collective behinds but will later scream blue murder.
I like the idea about use it or lose it in relation to licences. Hope they apply that to the commercial fishing sector as well. It is already used in the trades sector with the Gold Card system.
As for WWF (does that stand for World War Four?) it showed clearly how they do not consider humans to be a part of the environment. If they get their way, we will be a bit like eskimos, only allowed to fish in holes in the ice, only without the ice.
This will hit many of the smaller towns along the coast if it goes ahead as planned. The same areas that are presently suffering economic depression from downturns in the rural industries.
If WWF gets its way, we might see North Queensland depopulated. Shame the greenies do not do a bit more on the real issues that will kill the reef.
Posted the original of this before your last post. Also agree on the by-catch issue. ex skippers have admitted even spamish mackerel fingerlings by the thousands have been in the by-catch and they all go out the back dead. Look at areas where trawling has been stopped such as Port Phillip Bay and see the changes in fish stocks in fairly short time frames.
the only way to assess this is to close off areas and get some pre and post surveys done on fish stocks. Needs to be some pretty big areas so that fish have a chance for natural movement without getting caught in a cod end.
At the end of the day, we need to find another way to trap prawns without filling 5 to 10 times the tonnage of other species.
Vern

[Kerry]

KC, all AMPTO appear to be doing is looking after "their" own interests and what even amazes me more is the fact that the "same" people counter signing GBRMPA correspondence on behalf of AMPTO are ALSO the "same" ones counter signing GBRMPA corespondence on behalf of "other" similar organisations.

Quite frankly it appears to be totally inappropriate and has a real bad smell about it.

The other thing with groups like AMPTO is they appear to be generally northern based and rather hush hush in fact. But the last time I looked the GBR goes all the way to Bundaberg but it appears these northern organisations don't/wouldn't appear to know what's outside some northern city's southern limits.

The many examples of GBRMPA lack of management doesn't really hold them in good stead what so ever.

GBRMPA apparently have a direction (that's directive) to become "self funding" in the next few years. Now how they might do this is anybody's guess and just maybe revoking permits isn't simply for the sake of revoking permits.

If I had an interest in any "man made" feature (something like, harbours, marina's etc) within the GBR then I might be a little edgey.

Now without funding (and if it's to be self funding) then how the hell are they going to "police" anything, they can't police what they supposedly claim to "control" now. #

This funding issue appears to be what is going to drive what?

Cheers, Kerry.

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