To: The Director Select Committee on Recreational Fishing Parliament House Macquarie Street Sydney NSW 2000 From: Dr Jonathan Nevill OnlyOnePlanet Consulting PO Box 106 Hampton VIC 3188 18 March 2010 Dear Committee Index: Submission to inquiry into recreational fishing………………………….………...……….1 Attachment One: The AMSA MPA position paper…………………………….…………..8 Attachment Two: Notes on no-take areas………………………………………….……..46 Attachment Three: Impacts of recreational spearfishing…………………………….….70 Attachment Four: Need for networks of freshwater protected areas……………….…102 SUBMISSION TO INQUIRY INTO RECREATIONAL FISHING [B]oth recreational and commercial fishing sectors deserve consideration as contributors to the exploitation of fish in marine and inland waters. The lack of global monitoring and compiling of statistics on recreational fishing participation, harvest, and catch-and-release has retarded our ability to understand the magnitude of this fishing sector. Using data from Canada, we estimate that the potential contribution of recreational fish harvest around the world may represent approximately 12 percent of the global fish harvest. Failure to recognize the potential contribution of recreational fishing to fishery declines, environmental degradation, and ecosystem alterations places ecologically and economically important resources at risk. Elevating recreational fishing to a global conservation concern would facilitate the development of strategies to increase the sustainability of this activity. Cooke & Cowx (2004:857): Basis of submission: My submission to the Inquiry by the Select Committee (hereafter “the Inquiry”) is largely based on a detail review of pertinent literature, complemented by research I have conducted into the effects of recreational spearfishing at a shallow marine reef located in Victoria. With regard to marine issues, a core reference is Nevill (2009) – a doctoral thesis completed at the University of Tasmania. Although devoted to wider themes, the thesis contains chapters which review specific issues of concern regarding the management of recreational fisheries in Australia. With regard to freshwater issues, key references are major consultancy reports I have worked on, particularly Nevill (2004) and Kingsford et al. (2005). National and international commitments towards well-managed recreational fisheries: The ecological impacts of recreational fisheries are often assumed to be minimal; in fact the reverse is often the case. Lewin et al. (2006) and Cooke & Cowx (2004) have drawn attention to the potential of recreational fisheries to cause major ecosystem damage. Balon (2000) has discussed related ethical issues, with a plea to close or limit recreational fisheries. My thesis supports arguments by these authors in that the two recreational case studies examined suggest that Australian regulation of recreational fisheries falls well short of clearly stated international and national standards (Nevill 2009 chapters 15 & 16). Specifically, the 1 recreational fisheries I studied (spearfishing in Victoria, and gillnetting in Tasmania) do not meet international FAO1 guidelines for the application of the precautionary principle to fisheries management. These guidelines apply to Australian jurisdictions, as they follow from Australia’s formal endorsement of the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries 1995. With regard to national benchmarks, it should be noted that all Australian States, including of course New South Wales, through endorsement of the National Strategy for the Conservation of Australia’s Biological Diversity 1996, committed themselves (amongst other matters) to: review the appropriateness of current [fisheries] management strategies, techniques, standards, jurisdictions and legislation; develop and adopt practical and acceptable codes of practice for the management and monitoring of commercial and recreational fishing, for the harvesting of invertebrates, for the rehabilitation of depleted stocks, and for key habitat and spawning areas; and develop through the Australian and New Zealand Fisheries and Aquaculture Council, in consultation with relevant ministerial councils, a national strategy and guidelines for managing recreational fishing on an ecologically sustainable basis. In the course of my thesis I examined material available from the Department of Primary Industries Victoria, and the Department of Primary Industries, Water and the Environment Tasmania, in order to ascertain if these commitments have been kept. I found that, for Victoria and Tasmania: no reviews have been undertaken of the appropriateness of management strategies, techniques, standards or legislation specifically applicable or relevant to recreational spearfishing or recreational gillnetting; no code of practice has been developed specific or relevant to the management and monitoring of recreational spearfishing or recreational gillnetting; and no guidelines are in place pertinent to the management of recreational spearfishing or gillnetting on an ecologically sustainable basis. For Victoria and Tasmania it appears that the commitments made in 1996, listed above, have not been kept, at least in regard to the case studies I examined. I have not investigated the situation in New South Wales, but I suggest to you that a close look may find the same result – these 1996 commitments, I imagine, have not been actioned in an effective way by any Australian State. Impact of recreational spearfishing: My studies on the impact of spearfishing (Nevill 2009 Appendix 6, included below as Attachment Three) found that spearfishing pressures on accessible reefs can result in the entire removal of obligate reef-dwelling species from a site. At other sites, credible anecdotal evidence indicates that the abundance of some species at many sites has been reduced so far that these species now play no part in the ecology of the reef – referred to as ecological extinction at that site. On a wider scale, spearfishing has played an important role in reducing the abundance of the East Coast population of the grey nurse shark to a level that is likely to result in the ultimate regional extinction of that species (Nevill 2009 Appendix 6). Precautionary management of data-poor fisheries: The precautionary principle states that, where serious environmental degradation is a possibility, decision-makers should not wait for full scientific certainty regarding the danger before taking prudent measures to prevent or mitigate possible damage. The implications of the principle have been explored in an important Australian court case (Mohr 2006; New South Wales Land and Environment Court, Justice CJ Preston). Fishery managers within Australian jurisdictions are obliged to apply the precautionary principle, flowing from Australia’s endorsement of the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible 2 Fisheries 1995. The NSW Fisheries Management Act 1994 – s.3 (Objects of the Act) includes “to promote ecologically sustainable development, including the conservation of biodiversity.” The Act creates a “TAC Committee” which (s.30) “is to have regard to the precautionary principle” in making determinations. As NSW endorsed the National Strategy for Ecologically Sustainable Development (Commonwealth of Australia 1992) which endorsed the precautionary principle, it appears implicit that precaution must be applied within activities sanctioned under the NSW Fisheries Management Act. On the global scene, there is no doubt that recreational fisheries can cause serious environmental damage (Cooke & Cowx 2004, 2006). At a personal level, I have witnessed major impacts from recreational spearfishing (Nevill 2009 appendix 6) on shallow marine reefs. There is also little argument that high levels of uncertainty apply to the management of recreational fisheries: due to the costs and difficulties of enforcing compliance, monitoring multi-species stocks, and measuring overall recreational catch – management decisions are always made against high levels of uncertainty regarding critical management parameters. In this circumstance, the only way to apply precaution is to ‘err on the safe side’. The single most effective management strategy is to set aside ‘comprehensive, adequate and representative’ examples of marine ecosystems in large no-take protected areas (sometimes referred to as marine reserves). These reserves, apart from protecting viable examples of ecosystems with their important (and largely unknown) biodiversity values, provide important reference areas needed to evaluate the impacts of fishery management regimes in the wider marine environment. Moreover, if networks of reserves are extended to protect all important spawning and nursery sites, fishermen themselves will benefit from healthy and relatively stable fish stocks. There are other fishery management parameters which can ‘err on the safe side’: for example: catch limits, boat limits, gear restrictions, and minimum legal length. Fish can also be given greater protection through the use of closed seasons covering the full spawning period, as well as permanently or temporarily closing spawning sites, and here precaution dictates erring to expand the size and duration of the protected zones. The role of marine protected areas: Returning to the subject of the establishment of no-take marine protected areas (marine reserves), it is noteworthy that fishermen often oppose the closure of fishing areas, but later come to support the reserves. This has certainly been the case regarding the well-known marine reserve at Goat