THE system of marine parks is NSW is flawed and needs a complete overhaul, an independent audit by a team of prominent scientists has found.
The 124-page Report of the Independent Scientific Audit of Marine Parks in New South Wales was released on Thursday. It makes two main recommendations, namely that marine protection encompass the entire “marine estate” and that a scientific committee, including experts in socio-economics, be established to guide the future management of marine ecosystems.
The report calls for wide-ranging changes to marine parks management and structure and is critical of the system of marine protection introduced by the former state Labor government.
The current network of relatively small marine parks encompassing various “representative zones” was not effective, the report says. It recommends instead that this system be scrapped and replaced by a management regime which includes the entire marine ecosystem, called by the report the “marine estate”.
In a blow to anti-fishing groups which have long campaigned for increases in no-go zones, “solid scientific and socio-economic reasons” would be needed for any area to be closed to recreational fishing activity, Audit Report chairman Associate Professor Bob Beeton said.
In a further blow to extreme green groups seeking to ban fishing, the report quashed the benefits of the much-lauded “the spill-over effect”. Marine parks activists have long used the “spill-over effect” – which is based on the supposition that no-go zones produce more and bigger fish – as justification for locking anglers out of traditional fishing grounds.
“The Audit Panel concluded that where there is adequate fishery management, as is clearly the case for the majority of fisheries in NSW, it is misleading to espouse that there will be a large fisheries benefit from spillover,” the report says.
In an interview with Fishing World following the official release of the report, Professor Beeton rejected claims by NSW Greens MP Cate Faehrmann that the report advocated more marine parks.
“What we said was that steps should be taken to protect biodiversity in the Hawkesbury and Twofold bay areas,” Professor Beeton said. “It didn’t say that we should put marine parks there. The report also says there is very significant change required for the NSW marine estate and while the Government is getting itself organised to do that that it should maintain the current system. That should be a holding position; it’s not at all endorsing the current system. In fact the report says quite the opposite.”
Professor Beeton said one of the main findings of the report was that the structure of marine parks in NSW was flawed. All of the six mainland marine parks in the state are based on “CAR principles”, which involve creating different zones which either allow or don’t allow fishing.
“Strict adherence to CAR principles in small marine parks (as in NSW) doesn’t really work that well,” Professor Beeton said. “You can manage things a whole lot better if you manage the whole coast properly.”
The professor said that decisions about banning recreational fishing in NSW’s marine parks had been made “from a very poor knowledge base” and that future decisions regarding marine planning “be made with anglers’ aspirations in mind”.
The report recommended that fisheries management strategies be improved and that the NSW Government “move away from the representative type model as it really doesn’t suit marine protection”.
Socio-economic assessments should have been part of any decisions to ban anglers from fishing traditional areas, Professor Beeton said. “Costs and benefits need to be associated with any decision made on marine parks. Recreational fishing is a big business – we have lot of evidence that there are costs (to the community) if fishing access is restricted.”
Professor Beeton was highly critical of the level of “consultation” carried out by government officials before marine parks were created. “In some cases this consultation was simply (the officials) telling you what they were going to do.”
Maintaining and developing fish habitat was key to any meaningful marine protection and enhancement, Professor Beeton said. The report had as one its main recommendations the development of a new government agency which would encompass fisheries, the environment department and catchment authorities along the entire NSW coast.
“Failing to ensure habitat protection is more of a long-term problem (than fishing),” Professor Beeton told Fisho.
The current system of marine parks in NSW was “done far too quickly”, the professor said. “That’s why you’ve got the divisive situation you’re in now.”
It would take at least 10 to 15 years to develop an effective marine protection network, Professor Beeton said. “(By then) the marine estate in NSW will be managed properly, threats will be managed and the various user groups will be catered for.
“At the end of this process, done properly, you’d expect recreational fishermen to feel that they have ownership of the protected areas as much as they have ownership of other areas,” Professor Beeton said.
“There would be solid scientific and socio-economic reasons for any area to be closed off, not just because a certain percentage of water or habitat is required to be closed off. Our argument is that any closed area should be for a specific objective.”
Submissions and representations made by anglers and angling groups during the audit board’s inquiry “were of value”, Professor Beeton said. “The fact that we had a diverse range of recreational fishermen, as well as various other groups, including conservationists, talk to us gave us the evidence to see that the system wasn’t in great shape.”
Anglers have until June 30 to make comments on the Audit Report. NSW Fisheries Minister Katrina Hodgkinson said the Government would “stand by the existing moratorium on the declaration of new marine parks, alteration of sanctuary zones and review of zoning plans” and “will formally respond to the Audit Report in due course”.
View a copy of the Audit Report HERE. Public submissions can be made via yoursayonmarineparks@dpc.nsw.gov.au.
