Turning the Tide Newsletter – Spring 2024
Double Net-Free Wins
Dual back-to-back gillnet bans are a win for our northern marine life.
Commercial gillnets are indiscriminate killers that entangle and drown a range of animals. These fishing nets can be up to 600m long.
The Gulf of Carpentaria’s threatened sawfish, turtles and dugongs have won a much-needed reprieve following the Queensland government’s implementation of five new net-free zones.
The net-free zones include coastal waters from the top of Cape York down to Weipa, and around Mornington Island through to the Northern Territory border.
AMCS is proud to have supported First Nations representatives from Kowanyama to travel to Brisbane and advocate for the needs of their sea country and their community.
These net-free zones will provide a vital safehaven for some of the world’s last remaining viable populations of sawfish and hawksbill and green turtles that migrate between the Great Barrier Reef and the Gulf of Carpentaria.
Next door in the Northern Territory, we worked with the Territory community to secure bipartisan support for the phasing out of gillnets in the NT commercial barramundi fishery by 2028.
Both of these incredible victories happened because of the support of ocean lovers like you. Thank you.
