Letter to the Editor
The Examiner
23.01.02
MORE MARINE RESERVES NOT WARRANTED
C. Woodfield (letters 18 January) suggests that somehow marine protected areas will deliver secure recreational and commercial fish stocks.
How would this occur? Or is it just a 'throw away' line that conveniently ignores current fishery management arrangements?
The truth of the matter is that the viability of our fishing fleets depends on a sustainable resource and marine environment and for this reason we already have in place biological sustainable fishery management plans.
These plans, where individual fisheries are managed by different strategies, ensures that all our major state fisheries are conducted in a manner that protects the marine environment and harvestable resources within that environment for both current fishermen and for the generations that will follow us.
We already have over 300 marine areas in Tasmania where fishing activities are prohibited or restricted and these areas create in effect small and sometimes very large marine areas designed to protect the biodiversity and species of flora and fauna that are prevalent in these areas.
They include a representative range of marine habitats, a diverse range of plants, invertebrates and fish communities, seaweeds and grasses and also geological formations.
If creating marine reserves is a political or numbers game then existing protected areas could be renamed Marine Reserves and we would then have more of these areas in Tasmania than anywhere else in the world.
As we already have world class biologically sustainable fisheries management the creation of any further protected areas would only reduce the available productive fishing waters and therefore fish stocks for both recreational and commercial fishermen.
Bob Lister
Chief Executive
Tasmanian Fishing Industry Council