A PROPOSED marine sanctuary along Sydney’s Cronulla peninsula has been rejected.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Liberal mayor of the Shire, Carmelo Pesce, originally proposed an aquatic reserve in Bate Bay, running from Shelly Beach in the north to Bass and Flinders Point in the south.
The reserve “would not only permit a range of marine activities, including boating, scuba diving, snorkelling, and swimming, but would also provide a more robust framework to protect the vital marine environment in this area,” said Pesce.
However, according to The Sydney Morning Herald, a revised mayoral minute published online revealed “Pesce abandoned his call for a marine sanctuary, and will instead seek support for the state government to review the boundaries where spearfishing is banned, in collaboration with stakeholders.”
Pesce said: “The intent wasn’t to stop people fishing with a line.”
“If we do a marine park or a sanctuary, it would have stopped parents taking their kids there to go fishing.”
Calls for the marine sanctuary came following the spearing of a blue groper off Cronulla. Locals and green groups banded together following the widely publicised event, lobbying for a sanctuary that would have locked out spear and line fishers in the popular stretch of Sydney coastline.
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