WARNING WARNING

There is a Marine Protected Area coming to Batemans Bay/Narooma/Bermagui that is 15 times bigger than the NSW Batemans Marine Park. To be honest I am rather depressed at the way this MPA is being developed. Unless we take a stand the steamrolling will be relentless .. today (Friday 7th May) I just heard Nicki Hammond from the National Parks Association on “Country Hour”.

Following is my record of possibly the one and only consultation meeting in this area.

Greetings All

Thursday 6th May started off slow, ended up very busy!!

In the morning I heard on the ABC the Commonwealth was down here having meetings in Merimbula, Eden and Bermagui, shortly after received a couple of emails about the experience of the Charter boat people in Port Stephens in relation to the proposed Commonwealth Marine Park in Port Stephens. Not having heard ANYTHING down here it sounded ominous.
Ian Ford of Hot Shot charters Bermagui sent an email out saying there was a meeting on Keith Appleby’s boat about 4:30. I asked Keith if I could come, I had to go out for rest of day. Went to Bermi in a rush and it was just starting. Didn’t have time to contact any Narooma people .. sorry.

Present were:
Philip Boxall .. a member of a Tasmanian fishing family, now with DEWHA .. He is based in Tasmania and I think he said he was “in charge” of Commonwealth Marine Reserve system.
Martin Russel .. has been fishing for ‘years’. Now with DEHWA and he is the public face for East Coast system, he is based in Brisbane.
Also present were about 10 skippers and deckies from various Bermagui Charter boats, plus Keith Appleby, Ian Ford, as well as Paul Black, President Bermagui GFC.

Boxall and Russel had just completed a meeting with Commercial fishers, I don’t think they had any intention of having a meeting with Charter Boats/Rec people when they arrived in Bermagui that morning.

After the NSW Government effort with the Batemans Marine Park, what they had to say was depressingly familiar.
Best summarized by
• The “Batemans Area for further Assessment” was just not going to be a complete lockout. However the Area is set in cement. From north of Bawley Point to south of Bermagui, off Bunga Beach/Cuttagee? It starts 3nm. off the Coast and extends out about 90nm off the Coast.

• There WILL be total ‘no take’ zones, but these will be “designed to NOT interact with Charter Boats operators or Rec fishers AS FAR AS POSSIBLE”

• The Consultation process concludes late May 2010 (The end of this month !!!)

• The draft plan, including zoning, will be released early 2011

• This means that it will be up to the community to make representation about the ‘no take’ zones, rather than the Government having to PROVE that the “no take” zones are required. This is an important point as this was what happened with the Batemans Marine Park zoning draft plan.

• There will be a 3 months comment period.

• Finalisation by 2012. This is for the whole of Australia !!!

• The South West of Australia is more advanced in their process .. their draft will be out by August 2010.

• An fair amount of explanation of why it was necessary to have these areas .. none of which made ANY logical sense. We were spoken to as though we had never heard of a Marine Park, and I suspect because the Bermagui people had not experienced the zoning process in Batemans they were not quite as cynical as I was. I suspect that if the meeting was held in Narooma/Batemans Bay there would have been much more derision of some of their ‘explanatory’ statements.

• Perhaps this is why they have only held meetings in Eden, Merimbula, Bermagui and Ulladulla down here. Those are of course the Commercial fisher ‘centres’ so to speak. Because Port Stephens had seen the State Marine Park process those people (see description of Boxall and Russel by a charter skipper from P.S.) those people were far more cynical?

• A question re potential compensation .. this

• A question re potential compensation .. this was to be addressed to by Graham Williams (?? – could be wrong with this contact) in relation to a “Displaced Activity” guidance. This has to be put out before the first draft. Logically this seems strange. If you don’t know what the zoning will hold, only seen in draft, then how do they work out the businesses to be affected?

• As far as I can see the consultation process for this area has concluded. I can see NO more consultation occurring with Recreational or Charter operators on the South Coast. It appears that anyone who has interest/concerns has to make an approach to DEHWA.

• Boxhall and Russel gave ABSOLUTELY NO CONSIDERATION to likely socio-economic effects on local communities. That is NOT their goal.

• Boxhall & Russel were quite willing to “match it” in terms of sea/fishery experience with anyone there. I could not quite see the point of that .. it seemed like a pissing contest.

• I felt Boxhall and Russel were surprisingly young to have such a potential influence on communities on East coast Australian regional communities. There did not seem to be a large Departmental staff behind them.

• The Fact sheet we were given has quotable gems in it such as “ .. Like National Parks on land, marine reserves represent an ‘insurance policy’ that will benefit future generations…”. My sense of déjà vu is getting stronger.

• In a later email I will give links to the Commonwealth websites when I find them.

• The ‘Science’ is NOT coming from AMSA, so we were told, but from CSIRO and ‘other organizations’.

• The science behind ‘no take’ zones is “irrefutable in the rest of the world, so it will be good for here as well.”

The meeting concluded after about an hour. It was absolutely in terms of generalizations with no specifics whatsoever. No mention at all of necessity of ‘no take’ zones and why they will be established to the surface, when it is the biodiversity at the bottom they are trying to protect.

I was surprised a harder stance wasn’t taken by the charter operators as it was my impression that this was the first and last public consultation in this area.

If this is not addressed aggressively by the community, then we may well end up with ‘no take’ zones far larger in size. It is just as well to realise that the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park has 30% “no take” zones and there is no reason that figure will not be a starting point by the lunatic green conservation groups.

An example of how DEWHA has already shot itself in the foot in the ‘Science’ surrounding the Coral Seas Marine Park can be seen here:
http://www.fishingworld.com.au/news/desper...oral-sea-report
Scroll down to the bottom of the page and download, it is about 5mb., and 32 pages long.
This is a review by Dr. Ben Diggles of the science used by DEHWA in relation to the Coral Sea .. expect NO BETTER for “Batemans area for further assessment”

It's getting to be a bit of a joke isn't it

Rec fishing net's the gov millions in tax revenue each year & their big aim is to cripple that industry

ALL FISH AT THE FISH MARKETS WILL WILL COME FROM OVERSEAS.

Beond a joke now mate
in a few more years fishing will be banned alltogeter unless we have a change of govenment.

Yep only @ the polls will they get the message esp that BALD HEADED goose who dances like a lepper