By Ross Winstanley* Not content with their exclusive fishing access to every Victorian estuary, recreational fishers are now pushing for the closure of commercial fishing in the Gippsland Lakes. From the 1960s through the 1980s, Victoria’s annual 800 tonne Gippsland Lakes commercial fishery produced 80% of Australia's black bream landings, averaging about 250 tonnes. Today, the Gippslan...
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Buried deep in the icy mountains of a remote island in Norway, is a seed storage facility that currently houses almost 1 million plant seeds from almost every country in the world. Located 100 meters inside a mountain on the island of Spitsbergen, in the remote Arctic Svalbard archipelago, 1,300 kilometres from the North Pole its purpose is to be the ultimate insurance policy for the world’s...
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Electric pulse fishing (also known as electrofishing or electrical trawling) is a trawl fishing technique used in Europe to target flatfish (sole) and shrimp. It involves the release of electric currents with a range of frequency, voltage, pulse polarity, pulse shape, and pulse duration combinations into the seabed to either immobilize fish so they do not try to escape the fishing net or to star...
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All vessels in Australia have a responsibility not to pollute the sea and to be aware of the laws about oil and garbage pollution from vessels. Pollution of the marine environment by ships, including fishing vessels, is strictly controlled by the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (known as MARPOL). To minimise pollution, MARPOL prohibits ships from discharging ...
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