AFMA release annual report for 2014/15
Extracted from AFMA’s Annual Report 2011/15 The South East Trawl Fishing Industry Association has enjoyed a long and productive working relationship with AFMA. The Association represents the interests of over 35 fishers working in the South East Trawl sector of the Southern and Eastern Scalefish and Shark Fishery, providing fresh local seafood for the people […]
Snapper under control
Snapper has been small part of the South East Trawl Fishery’s catch for more than 100 years and is an unavoidable part of the sector’s 10,000 tonne catch of other species. There is also a separate, healthy commercial snapper catch in Port Phillip Bay licenced by Victoria which catches around 130 tonnes. Snapper is an […]
A glass house called accountability and reforms Australia desperately needs
In undertaking a 2014 Nuffield Scholarship I have so far traveled to seventeen countries researching resource management practices, commercial fishing techniques and the legislative processes in place that govern the two. These three things are linked when considering how best to regulate an industry that extracts from a self-replenishing resource to ensure that extraction never […]
A+ for large trawlers in the small pelagic fishery
Two years after the Ministers of Environment and Fisheries imposed a temporary ban on the use of large scale freezer trawlers in the SPF, an Expert Panel has produced a report that gives a cautious green light to fishing. The Panel found that these vessels should be managed in a precautionary, risk-based way – effectively […]
Cooked seafood one step closer to being properly labelled
A Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee has reported on the current requirements for labelling of seafood. The Committee’s terms of reference included whether the current seafood labelling requirements: provide consumers with sufficient information to make informed choices, including choices based on sustainability and provenance preferences, whether they allow for best-practice traceability […]
An end to Victorian caught inshore fish?
The Victorian Government has announced it will buyback commercial fishing net licenses in Port Phillip Bay within 10 years, and pledged $20 million to begin the process if it is re-elected. The State Opposition followed announcing a similar scheme within days of the Government’s announcement. SETFIA understands that the Victorian Coalition Government was pushed into […]
What happens when commercial fishing ends?
In 2001 NSW introduced a recreational fishing fee that generated revenue for the Government. Some of this revenue was used to remove commercial fishing and create a “Recreational Fishing Haven” in the Tuross Lake. A report by the NSW Department of Primary Industries aimed to estimate the recreational fishing effort and harvest in the Lake, […]
Intelligence no prerequisite for politics
Having recently spent two months travelling throughout Europe on a Nuffield Australia Scholarship researching varying fishing practices and management regimes I was, for a brief moment, proud that Australian fisheries are managed so well, so sustainably and that Australian fisherman are leading the world in using the lowest impact techniques available globally. My pride in […]
Its official – no overfishing occurring in the south-east
Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture, Senator Richard Colbeck, yesterday released the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) Fishery Status Reports 2013-14. This is the 19th year that the report has been run. The report assesses the status of all 93 Commonwealth fish stocks across 21 fisheries. The independent report […]
New Commission
The Parliamentary Secretary, Senator the Hon. Richard Colbeck, has announced the makeup of the new AFMA Commission. The number of part-time Commissioners has been reduced from nine to seven. The appointment and end dates for the part time Commissioners have been staggered providing for better succession in the future. The current Commission has three new […]