The
Sydney Morning Herald,
5 June 2018:
Wild fish stocks in
Australian waters shrank by about a third in the decade to 2015, declining in
all regions except strictly protected marine zones, according to data collected
by scientists and public divers.
The research, based on
underwater reef monitoring at 533 sites around the nation and published in
the Aquatic Conservation journal, claims to be the first
large-scale independent survey of fisheries. It found declining numbers tracked
the drop in total reported catch for 213 Australian fisheries for the 1992-2014
period.
The biomass of larger
fish fell 36 per cent on fished reefs during 2005-15 and dropped 18 per cent in
marine park zones allowing limited fishing, the researchers said. There was a
small increase in targeted fish species in zones that barred fishing
altogether.
"Most of the
numbers are pretty shocking," said David Booth, a marine ecologist at the
University of Technology Sydney. “This paper really nails down the fact that
fishing or the removal of large fish is one of the causes” of their decline.
Over-fished stocks
include the eastern jackass morwong, eastern gemfish, greenlip abalone, school
shark, warehou and the grey nurse shark. The morwong catch, once as common as
flathead in the trawl fishery, dived about 95 per cent from the 1960s to 109
tonnes in the 2015-16 year to become basically a bycatch species……
…Peter Whish-Wilson, the
Greens ocean spokesman, said the new research was largely based on actual
underwater identification – including the Reef Life Survey using citizen
scientists. It suggests fishing stocks "are not as rosy as the industry or
government would like us all to think".
"This study also
shows that marine parks can be successful fisheries management tools but we
simply don’t have enough of them or enough protection within them to deliver
widespread benefits," he said.
"The new
Commonwealth Marine Reserves are woefully inadequate and won’t do anything to
stop the continuing decline in the health of our oceans."
Environmental Defender's Office NSW, July 2017:
Humane Society
International Australia (HSI), represented by EDO NSW, is seeking independent
review of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority’s (GBRMPA) decision to
approve a lethal shark control program in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.
HSI has lodged an appeal
in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) which will require a full
reconsideration of the approval of the shark control program. The 10 year
lethal control program targets 26 shark species in the Marine Park, including
threatened and protected species. The appeal is based on the public interest in
protecting the biodiversity of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.....
As apex predators,
sharks play a vital role in maintaining the health of the Great Barrier Reef.
HSI is concerned about the ongoing impacts caused by the use of lethal
drumlines which are known to impact not only on shark species but also
dolphins, turtles and rays. HSI is calling for non-lethal alternatives for
bather protection.
The
Sydney Morning Herald,
27 May 2018:
Forest covering an area
more than 50 times the size of the combined central business districts of
Sydney and Melbourne is set to be bulldozed near the Great Barrier Reef,
official data shows, triggering claims the Turnbull government is thwarting its
$500 million reef survival package.
Figures provided to
Fairfax Media by Queensland’s Department of Natural Resources, Mines and Energy
show that 36,600 hectares of land in Great Barrier Reef water catchments has
been approved for tree clearing and is awaiting destruction.
The office of
Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg did not say if his government was
comfortable with the extent of land clearing approved in Queensland, or if it
would use its powers to cancel permits.
The approvals were
granted by the Queensland government over the past five years. About 9000
hectares under those approvals has already been cleared.
Despite the dire
consequences of land clearing for the Great Barrier Reef – and billions of
dollars of public money spent over the years to tackle the problem – neither
Labor nor the government would commit to intervening to stop the mass
deforestation.
Environmental Defender's Office NSW, 25 May 2018:
Freedom of information
laws are an important mechanism for making government decisions transparent and
accountable. But the existence of such laws doesn’t mean access to information
is easy.
It took a three-year legal
process for the Humane Society International (HSI), represented by EDO NSW,
to access
documents about how the Australian Government came to accredit a NSW
biodiversity offsets policy for major projects.
The NSW policy in question
allowed significant biodiversity trade-offs (that is, permitting developers to
clear habitat in return for compensatory actions elsewhere) seemingly
inconsistent with national biodiversity offset standards. HSI wanted to know how
the national government could accredit a policy that didn’t meet its own
standards.
Despite Australia being
a signatory to important international environmental agreements and accepting
international obligations to protect biodiversity, in recent years it has been
proposed that the national government should delegate its environmental
assessment and approval powers to the states, creating a ‘one stop shop’ for
developers.
The original FOI request
in this case was submitted in early 2015, during a time when Federal and State
and Territory Governments were actively in consultation on handing over federal
approval powers under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity
Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act). This was to be done in the name of
efficiency, with the assurance that national standards would be upheld by the
states.
Over 60 documents
finally accessed by HSI show this was a false promise. The documents reveal
that federal bureaucrats in the environment department identified key areas of
the NSW policy that differed from federal standards.
Despite this, the policy
was accredited.
Accreditation meant that
the NSW policy could be used when approving developments with impacts on
nationally threatened species found in NSW, instead of applying the more
rigorous national offsets policy.
In the time it took to
argue for access to the documents, NSW developed a new biodiversity offsets
policy as part of broader legislative reforms for biodiversity and land
clearing. Unfortunately, the new NSW biodiversity offsets policy continues to
entrench many of the weaker standards. For example, mine site rehabilitation
decades in the future can count as an offset now; offset requirements may be
discounted if other socio-economic factors are considered; and supplementary
measures - such as research or paying cash - are an alternative to finding a
direct offset (that is, protecting the actual plant or animal that has been
impacted by a development).
While there have been
some tweaks to the new policy for nationally listed threatened species, there
is still a clear divergence in standards. The new policy, and the new NSW
biodiversity laws, are now awaiting accreditation by the Australian Government.
How our unique and
irreplaceable biodiversity is managed (and traded off) is clearly a matter of
public interest. And on the eve of a hearing at the Administrative Appeals
Tribunal, the federal environment department agreed and released over 60
documents. While it was a heartening win for transparency and the value of FOI
laws, it was a depressing read when these documents revealed the political
endorsement of extinction.
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