THE long awaited Independent Report into the Commonwealth Marine Reserve Network was publicly released recently with a clear message to Australia’s 5 million recreational fishers… You’re locked out!
And you guessed it – there’s no science behind this recommendation – just arbritrary decision making underpinned by an ideology that recreational fishing in any shape or form is damaging to the environment and needs to be banned from marine national parks!
If the Review recommendations were implemented, recreational fishers will be locked out of over 1.0 million square kilometres of our seas, including iconic reefs such as Osprey, Flinders, Holmes, Marion, Wreck, Kenn, and Melish reefs in the Coral Sea, large parts of the Perth Trench and Geographe Bay in the South West of Western Australia.
Some recreational fishers are saying it is debatable whether the Review outcomes are any better than the infamous “Burke Plan” of the previous Labor/Greens Government – that would have seen recreational fishers locked out of around 1.3 million square kilometres of our seas.
The reports can be checked out here: http://www.parksaustralia.gov.au/marine/review/reports.html
Why has this occurred?
Though the Review states its scientific credentials and methodology in assessing the marine environment, disappointingly it adopts the same outdated, unscientific and simplistic “take/no take” approach to its proposed management zoning for marine parks, that was used by the Labor/Greens Government when it planned to lock recreational fishes out. This approach is surprising, given recent developments in other parts of the world and considering the generally rigorous scientific approach used in other parts of the review.
The “take/no take” approach basically states that if you catch a fish, it is bad as it could run down biological stocks, even though you might catch and release that fish. In contrast, other recently declared marine parks near Hawaii (The Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument) and in the Atlantic Ocean (Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument) have allowed recreational fishing to continue within their conservation zones in recognition of its minimal environmental impacts and substantial socio-economic benefits1,2,3.
In contrast, the Australian Federal Government’s “take-no take” approach means that mum, dad and the kids going for a fish are treated the same as a supertrawler or oil and mining activities – and are locked out of marine national parks. Such an approach does not take into account whether recreational fishing does practically affect fish stocks to a point where banning the activity in all its forms is warranted, particularly when adaptive management approaches such as catch & release, selective targeting, size and bag limits and restrictions on gear can be used to minimise impacts on biological fish stocks or the marine environment.
The approach is also directly discriminatory against recreational fishing. It bans recreational fishing from marine national parks, yet allows other damaging activities such as diving, large-scale tourism, cargo shipping and even defense activities. The existence of these other activities renders the marine national park zoning virtually useless as scientific reference zones (one of the main reasons why they are being promoted as necessary in Australia). Why? because our government continues to ignore scientific evidence of equal or greater environmental impacts from other recreational activities such as scuba diving and nature based tourism, which are still allowed in these so called scientific reference zones but can significantly damage fragile habitats such as corals, including causing massive increases in the prevalence of coral disease 4,5,6.
In reality, the IUCN already has zoning schemes for such scientific reference sites, namely the IUCN 1a and 1b Categories7. Any area that permits recreational diving must be considered a disturbed environment based on the available scientific evidence, and hence the IUCN II Category areas allowing diving will have limited value as scientific reference sites.
So how does the Review justify the use of this unscientific, outdated approach?
This question was asked of the Review Chairs during their public consultation process. They answered that allowing recreational fishing into Marine Parks is not consistent with the principles of the International Union for Conservation and Nature (IUCN) categories for Marine Parks. So what do the Principles say?
The IUCN Principles description states:
Category ii: National Park: Protected Area managed mainly for ecosystem conservation and recreation.
Natural area of land and/or sea, designated to:
(a) protect the ecological integrity of one or more ecosystems for this and future generations,
(b) exclude exploitation or occupation inimical to the purposes of designation of the area, and
(c) provide a foundation for spiritual, scientific, educational, recreational and visitor opportunities, all of which must be environmentally and culturally compatible.
Check out the Principles at:
There is no mention in the principles about “Take and no take” or locking recreational fishers out. In fact, this category seems to be all about allowing recreational activities into marine national parks as long as the activities can be conducted in such a way as to maintain ecological integrity of the area. If there is anything that can be made out of these Principles based on the latest scientific evidence, it’s that they raise more questions about allowing diving, large-scale tourism, cargo ships and defense activities into marine parks than recreational fishing.
The question remains as to what are the impacts of these other activities on the ecological integrity of a marine park area? As mentioned previously, there is plenty of scientifically documented evidence that diving and tourism activities cause degradation and ecological damage to marine habitats. Recreational fishing activities can take fish but also can exist without taking fish, and can be regulated to maintain ecological integrity. In contrast, it is doubtful whether these other recreational activities can be regulated to the same degree to minimise their impact and maintain the ecological integrity of an area.
So where does this “take vs no take” ideology come from? To find the answer to this, we had to delve into the IUCN website to a document titled: Guidelines for Applying the IUCN Protected Area Management Categories to Marine Protected Areas.
https://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/iucn_categoriesmpa_eng.pdf
In this document, under “Notes relating to Category II” it states:
“Extractive use (of living or dead material) is not considered consistent with the objectives of category II because such activities (particularly fishing), even if undertaken at low levels, are recognised as causing ecological draw-down on one or more components of the overall food web, which is incompatible with ecosystem protection.” Page 21.
This seems to be a myopic condition that fails to recognise catch & release fishing as a form of recreational fisheries management. This is not surprising, however, as the IUCN is based in Switzerland where the benefits of catch and release fishing (amongst other world’s best practice recreational fisheries management arrangements) are not recognised. In reality, all marine parks worldwide are established to maintain a range of ecological attributes, not just fish stocks. Natural predation and food chain processes mean that various components of the food web in marine parks are being drawn down and replaced all the time, naturally. In addition, many fish stocks, and particularly those targeted by recreational fishers are often migratory in nature.
Instead, the IUCN implies that recreational fishing in all its forms creates ecological draw down, ignoring the fact that catch and release fishing conducted using best practice methods does not cause ecological drawdown due to high fish survival rates, and that fact that any post-release mortality is significantly below levels of natural mortality)8, 9,10. Furthermore, migratory fish species like billfish and tunas will be impacted upon by factors that occur outside the marine park area, irrespective of the fishing activity within the area.
In addition, if there are concerns over resident fish populations within a marine park area, this can be resolved by not allowing fishing of these species within the marine park area. This is achievable as most residential fish species are demersal species by nature. As such, regulating or banning fishing for demersal species within the area will allow this to be controlled, as has recently been done in the US for their North East Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument1,3.
The application of the “take/no take” ideology is also questionable given the large areas (hundreds of thousands of square kilometres in the Coral Sea for example), that are potentially reserved as Marine National Parks. Given the very low level of recreational fishing intensity over these areas, any ecological drawdown would be almost non-existent,and if carefully regulated, would be unlikely to be even statistically measurable in relation to natural ecological cycles. This is recognised in overseas jurisdictions which allow recreational fishing in these sorts of remote areas1,2,3, but not, it seems, in Australia.
The myopic, outdated “take/no take” approach also does not recognise that diving and tourist activities can have a detrimental effect and ecological draw down – this includes direct damage to coral4,5,6 and hence the loss of available habitat – effecting foodweb capacity. These are inter-related components of the marine ecosystem so diver damage to coral cannot be ignored as it also causes ecological drawdown. In addition, there is the well-known practice of shark berleying by divers and tourist operators. This activity, practiced by many dive operators in the Coral Sea, can contribute to significant changes to shark behaviour and migrations11, and localised depletion of fish species caught up in the resulting feeding frenzy of sharks that are often migratory in nature. This activity definitely has adverse ecological effects and thus also cannot be ignored.
Other activities that impact on the ecosystem that are allowed in marine parks include cargo vessels and defense activities. Anchoring of large vessels can create significant ecosystem damage, as can introduction of invasive organisms and diseases via ballast water and biofouling, while defense activities where live ammunition and high level radar and sonar equipment are used can also cause significant changes to behaviour and health12. These activities can create an imbalance in the food web and by the definition used by IUCN – “is incompatible with ecosystem protection”, and therefore should also be banned from the Marine Parks IUCN Category II under the Australian Federal Governments definition of the zone.
What is the International Union of Conservation and Nature (IUCN)?
The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources is an international organisation based in Switzerland working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Former Greens Leader Senator Christine Milne was Vice President of IUCN for a number of years before the Labor-Greens Government of 2011- 2013. The Commonwealth Department of Environment and Energy is a member of the IUCN.
Check out Christine Milne and IUCN here:
https://www.iucn.org/content/former-iucn-vice-president-becomes-leader-australian-green-party
Guidelines are guidelines – they are not law
The IUCN guidelines are written for a broad range of countries so they can develop marine reserves. Many of these countries do not have appropriate standards of fisheries management or governance. It can be argued that Australia, like the United States, has world leading fisheries management and a high level of governance. Applying blunt “take/no take” approaches does not recognise the ability of Australia to implement a management approach for recreational fishing that minimises any impacts on the ecological system to a level below the impact of other recreational activities currently still allowed within the Marine Park Category II. Indeed, we should be following the examples from other leading nations like the United States which recognises the minimal environmental impacts and substantial socio-economic benefits which accrue when suitably managed recreational fishing is allowed in national marine parks.
Another disturbing aspect of the IUCN guidelines
The principles of IUCN Category II national parks are also applied to terrestrial protected areas. In fact, the IUCN guidelines advocate consistency between what is allowed in terrestrial national parks with what is allowed in marine national parks.The IUCN Guidelines state:
“Closure to recreational and commercial fishing should therefore be seen as critical to category II MPAs in the same way as “closure to hunting of mammals and birds and harvesting of vegetation is for terrestrial category II protected areas, since fish, invertebrates, and algae are all inter-related components of the marine ecosystem.” Page 28.
Recreational hunters are, or have been, permitted under strict controls in specified terrestrial national parks in Victoria, Western Australia, Queensland and South Australia. Recreational Fishers are allowed to fish in all terrestrial national parks in Australia, subject to regulations. There are also international examples of allowing hunting (and fishing) in IUCN II category terrestrial parks such as Yellowstone National Park in the United States13. According to the official Yellowstone National Park website, “Fishing has been a major visitor activity (in the park) for well over a century. Because of this history, fishing continues to be allowed and can complement, and in some cases even enhance, the park’s primary purpose to preserve natural environments and native species”.14
If the IUCN guidelines are blindly applied to all national parks, then based on this reasoning Governments around the world would also have to ban hunting and fishing from all terrestrial national parks.
The Australian Federal Government is clearly trying to implement a double standard. This is an unacceptable situation that again does not reflect current international trends or the high level of governance and compliance Australia can use to ensure ecological processes are maintained and protected while still allowing some forms of recreational fishing to co-exist with other recreational pursuits in terrestrial and marine national parks. What is even more worrying is the apparently arbitrary nature of the IUCN II zoning decisions, which seem to be based mainly on a system of random “horse trading” rather than any thorough scientific process. See the case study on zoning of Wreck Reef in the Coral Sea for an example of this.
Australians deserve a better process. Shouldn’t we be able to determine who can access our own Marine Parks and the nature of that access?
References:
- https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/09/15/fact-sheet-president-obama-continue-global-leadership-combatting-climate
- https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/08/26/fact-sheet-president-obama-create-worlds-largest-marine-protected-area
- https://www.nmma.org/press/article/20820
- Lamb JB, Willis BL (2011). Using Coral Disease Prevalence to Assess the Effects of Concentrating Tourism Activities on Offshore Reefs in a Tropical Marine Park. Conservation Biology 25(5): 1044-1052.
- Lamb JB et al. (2014). Scuba diving damage and intensity of tourist activities increases coral disease prevalence. Biological Conservation 178: 88-96.
- van de Water JA (2015). Comparative immune responses of corals to stressors associated with offshore reef-based tourist platforms. Conservation Physiology 3(1): cov032; doi:10.1093/conphys/cov032
- https://www.iucn.org/theme/protected-areas/about/protected-area-categories/category-ii-national-park
- Cooke SJ et al. (2006). Is catch-and-release recreational angling compatible with no-take marine protected areas? Ocean & Coastal Management 49: 342–354
- Danylchuk AJ et al. (2007). Post-release mortality of bonefish, Albula vulpes, exposed to different handling practices during catch-and-release angling in Eleuthera, The Bahamas. Fisheries Management and Ecology 14: 149–154
- Skomal GB et al. (2002). A comparison of circle hook and straight hook performance in recreational fisheries for juvenile Atlantic bluefin tuna. American Fisheries Society Symposium 30: 57-65.
- Hammerschlag N et al. (2012). Don’t bite the hand that feeds: assessing ecological impacts of provisioning ecotourism on an apex marine predator. Functional Ecology doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2435.2012.01973
- Wright AJ et al. (2012). Size matters: Management of stress responses and chronic stress in beaked whales and other marine mammals may require larger exclusion zones. Marine Pollution Bulletin 63: 5–9.
- https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/nature/fish_management_history.htm
- https://www.nps.gov/yell/planyourvisit/fishing.htm
