Fish and Chips  

To continue providing fish and chips produced from healthy natural resources that are cared for, understood and used wisely for the benefit of all, now and in the future.

THE RISKS ARE:

• Without integration in decision-making, ecosystem inter-relationships are not being acknowledged.
• Best available information is not being shared.
• Hazards posed by cumulative and additive interactions are not being recognised or taken into account.

Without integration between use of resources and across jurisdictions there are major implications for guaranteeing sustainability of any particular resource. Nature neither conforms to nor complies with bureaucratic/political boundaries.

PROPOSAL:

Three Pilot Studies – one catchment in each of the NRM Regions -

Georges River – North; Little Swanport River – South; e.g. Duck River – Cradle Coast, as each of these areas has considerable existing information and complementary investigations under way, are of practical size and complexity, and have interactions of concern.

To Develop Catchment Audits/Assessment and Methods

The catchment approach is organised around the guiding principles of partnerships, geographic focus and sustainable management based on sound science and data, is cost effective, practicable, environmentally responsible and safe.

Catchment audits/assessments integrate the catchment approach with ecological risk assessment to increase the use of environmental monitoring and assessment data in catchment-scale decision making. Catchment methods are developed based on experience from catchment assessments and other relevant scientific literature.

This approach is supported by NRM Ministerial Council ‘A Framework for a National Co-operative Approach to Integrated Coastal Zone Management’ (30^th October 2003).

"The Australian coastal zone is a focus of major economic, industrial and social activity. Australians are giving increased value to lifestyle choices in the coastal zone with more than 86% of the population now living near the coast and even more visiting coastal areas regularly. These trends are placing greater pressure on coastal resources and present significant resource use challenges, some of which have emerged at the national scale.

The State of the Environment Report (2001) notes that while there are continued efforts to improve coastal management responses, coastal zone condition is not significantly improving, and against a number of criteria continues to decline. Pressures on coastal resources are increasing at a rate exceeding the time necessary for damaged environments to stabilise and be repaired.

Framework Actions
Theme One – Catchment – Coast - Oceans Continuum

Action
Identify national research priorities for improving management of biophysical, social (including recreational use and activities) and economic processes operating across the continuum.

Outcome
Biophysical economic and social information underpins decision-making.

Responsibilities
NRM programs committee."

"7. If close regulation of point source discharges is undertaken, then the water quality monitoring system can largely be limited to inland waters thus avoiding the complexities of dealing with the hydrodynamics of estuaries, coastal and marine waters. Nevertheless, the complex issue of establishing baseline sites for estuarine and coastal monitoring should continue to be investigated and costed. As a first step hazard analysis and risk assessment of potential catchment impacts on estuaries and near coastal environments is required to determine the need for, and prioritise, baseline sites to monitor estuaries and near coastal environments."

"A. The need for action
The major threats to the health and productivity and biodiversity of the marine environment results from human activities on land – in coastal areas and further inland. Most of the pollution load of oceans, including municipal, industrial and agricultural run-off, as well as atmospheric deposition, emanates from such land-based activities and affects the most productive areas of the marine environment, including estuaries and near-shore coastal waters. These areas are likewise threatened by physical alteration of coastal environment, including destruction of habitats of vital importance for ecosystem health. Moreover, contaminants which pose risks to human health and living resources are transported long distances by water courses, ocean currents and atmospheric processes."

Copies will be forwarded to NRM South and NRM North West, National Oceans Office, Hobart; Tasmanian Oyster Research Council, TAC, TFIC and others, and posted on web site www.tfic.com.au as "Fish and Chips".

Submitted by:
Colin R. Dyke
Chairman Tasmanian Aquaculture Council
State NRM Councillor (Marine)

NB: Alesia and Sam are my infant grand children - the newest generation – and symbolise future generations.

Acknowledgment – those parts of this document that are not direct quotes have largely been paraphrased from existing literature from many and varied sources covering an extensive period, the point being, it is high time that we collectively dispensed with the rhetoric and implemented the action.

The community has a right-to-know, and be involved in resource management.