1 March 2014
This working paper was prepared to demonstrate to the then Minister for Fisheries and his fishery advisers just how the gillnetting of grey mackerel fails to meet the requirements of ecologically sustainable development
INTRODUCTION
Under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) the Australian Government has a legislative responsibility to ensure that all fisheries from which product is exported undergo assessment to determine the extent to which management arrangements will ensure the fishery is managed in an ecologically sustainable way.
To assist in this assessment process, the Australian Government has developed the ‘Guidelines for the Ecologically Sustainable Management of Fisheries’, Edition 2 in 2007, available from: www.environment.gov.au/coasts/fisheries/publications/pubs/guidelines.pdf. The government states that the guidelines are intended to aid in making rigorous and transparent assessments in close cooperation with fisheries agencies, the fishing industry and the wider community.
The guidelines require that until research on the specific stock provides information, “a precautionary approach should set conservative limits to account for the unknown level of uncertainty.” The results of the various assessments carried out under the above requirement are published at: www.environment.gov.au/coasts/fisheries.
Recently the status of the east coast fishery for grey mackerel (Scomberomorus semifasciatus) was changed from “undefined” to “sustainably fished”. Reasons are still to be made public for this change.
This report and a video made in 2007, (view here) highlight concerns relating to the netting of pre-spawning and spawning aggregations of this philopatric species in Far North Queensland and requests that the justification for the change in status be made known as soon as possible.
Sustainable Fishing FNQ 