Here is the industry praising their own efforts in creating more sustainable fisheries. I applaud them for that, but with one major note -

In the comm only deepwater fisheries they may voluntarily (sort of at least) reduce catch levels and work on improving their catch techniques, set areas aside or make special rules for them etc to create sustainable fisheries. It appears that at least in some cases this has been successful and that is great.

Where are those initiatives in the shared inshore fisheries? It is obvious to most that our inshore fisheries are under massive pressure and in many cases declining badly. Even the once improving HGulf snapper fishery appears to have gone back into decline over the past few seasons if you judge it by the recreational catch success rate. That rec success rate is really important as it will precede any eventual drop in comm catch as they will just fish longer to catch their quota. It is the first available, and undebatable, sign of the fishery going backwards. This HGulf season so far has been dire for all but the better anglers and the snapper just aren't where they normally would be in any abundance. Even the highly skilled charter fleet is starting to struggle at the moment.

So whilst the industry are patting themselves on the back for getting sustainability medals for key deep water (comm only) species, where are their forward looking initiatives to achieve the same with our very socially important inshore species? All I see is them arguing that we need to keep cutting the recreational catch or making senseless and self serving statements about how snapper abundance is preventing them from eliminating the last few remaining gurnard, trevally, and john dory etc because snapper become a nuisance by-catch. Reality is that they have already fished down those other stocks to the point where even the rare snapper are a problem as they try to sweep up the remaining few minority species.

We hear talk about new nets that are going to save the world, but we have been hearing that for years without seeing anything happen. We hear how they might agree to move the trawl line further offshore, but only if the rec community make even more sweeping concessions on top of the significant cuts already conceded. They won't however agree to do anything to reduce their take out of the inshore biomass. That would have to be demanded by government and fought through the courts.  

Funny how they can make these hopefully/seemingly positive initiatives in the fisheries that they more or less own 100%, but doing anything about the perilous state of our shared inshore fisheries is way too hard. I guess their fear is that anything positive they do might benefit the rec sector and they might not personally reap 100% of the return. At the same time however, they are more than happy to take a cut of any extra abundance that might result from ongoing cuts to recreational take.

And they wonder why the rec anglers of this country view them so poorly.

 

Cheers