03.06.03 Davey_Twofold MPAs  

3 June 2003

Resource Planning and Development Commission,
G.P.O. Box 1691,
Hobart, Tas. 7001

Dear Sir,


Inquiry into the Establishment of Marine Protected Areas within the Davey and Twofold Shelf Bioregions – Response to Draft Recommendations Report




In our submission dated 12 May 2003 we advised that recent discussions with the Australian Fisheries Management Authority suggested that newly submitted Tasmanian catch figures do not include school and gummy shark catches reported to AFMA by commercial fishermen from inshore waters around the Kent Group.

We have now clarified this issue with AFMA and can elaborate on their submission to you dated 13 May 2003.

The attached data refers to Commonwealth shark catches reported to AFMA for the period from 1998 to 2002 inclusive for fishing blocks 39A47 and 39C47.

These catch statistics show that an average of 134.506 tonnes of shark were caught in these fishing blocks per year over the period from 1998 to 2002 inclusive and in their submission AFMA has stated that the majority of this catch is believed to have been taken in the proposed Kent Group marine protected area.

This represents around 6% of the entire Southern Shark fishery catch for these years which is very significant indeed!

These Commonwealth managed catches were not recorded or recognised in your Background Report.

When coupled with new State shark and scalefish catch details as reported separately by DPIWE and documented in our correspondence of 12 May 2003 it suggests that the Background Report for this area was very seriously flawed.

As MPA options for the Kent Group were based on this Background Report as well as submissions we suggest that the significance of the Kent Group to the commercial fishing industry has been mightily understated.

This also means that the statement on page 42 of the Draft Recommendations Report that "In terms of scalefish, the boundary of the proposed marine protected area is of little consequence as evidence indicates that the fishery in the Kent Group is at best negligible" is totally erroneous.

We now strongly recommend that the RPDC review all aspects of the Twofold Shelf proposed MPA options based on this new information.

Yours faithfully,


R.K. LISTER

Chief Executive

Year	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	Average
Boats	30	32	31	30	25	29.6
shots	527	747	752	688	453	633.4
catch (kgs)
Saw Shark	21,697	18,486
Common Saw Shark		4,332	7,349	20,711	6,519	15,819
Sthn Saw Shark		2,843	18,765	15,388	7,151	11,037
Elephantfish	1,259	1,716	1,605	2,473	1,618	1,734
Gummy Shark	74,107	129,356	101,168	127,839	77,434	101,981
School shark	4,057	4,484	1,549	2,324	1,042	2,691
Other species	4,035	3,727	4,218	3,116	2,165	3,452
Total	105,155	164,944	134,654	171,851	95,929	134,506
Total Fishery
Gummy	1,518,000	1,839,000	1,651,000	1,698,000	1,512,000	1,643,600
School	579,000	419,000	253,000	172,000	197,000	324,000
% of catch from blocks above
Gummy	4.9	7.0	6.1	7.5	5.1	6.12
School	0.7	1.1	0.6	1.4	0.5	0.86