Commercial fishing nets are entangling and killing threatened species.
The Great Barrier Reef is an incredible ecosystem that supports globally significant populations of endangered species like dugongs, turtles, snubfin dolphins and sawfish.
But our iconic marine wildlife is threatened by commercial fishing nets, where they are easily entangled and drown within minutes. Gillnets are indiscriminate killers, up to 1.2km long on the Great Barrier Reef. These nets cause carnage, capturing thousands of sawfish, turtles and dugongs every year.
The Queensland Government has released a draft strategy to protect our endangered marine life. But it isn’t strong enough and is set up to fail. It still allows commercial fishers to kill too many dugongs and turtles, so will only lead to the ongoing decline of these species. We have a chance to change this.
Submissions close January 31. Urge the Queensland Government to put cameras on boats and protect our unique marine wildlife on the Great Barrier Reef.
What your submission will say:
Dear Fisheries Managers,
I’m contacting you as an Australian who is deeply concerned about the ongoing bycatch of endangered and protected species in commercial gillnets in the Great Barrier Reef.
A precautionary and robust Protected Species Management Strategy (PSMS) is needed to provide protection to threatened species, reduce the risk of commercial gillnet entanglement, and allow for the recovery of their populations.
I am concerned that the Strategy will not meet its objectives in reducing protected species interactions as close to zero as possible or not significantly contributing to an undesirable event for the species population over the next 20 years.
Cameras on fishing boats are urgently needed so that we have accurate data on the scale of threatened species interactions, while the PSMS must account for the cumulative impact that multiple fishers can have on a protected species’ population.
I therefore urge you to:
- Mandate electronic monitoring on 100% of net fishing vessels by July 2022 and include this as a requirement within the PSMS.
- Account for the cumulative impacts of threatened species interactions by establishing precautionary trigger limits for all Species of Conservation Interest (SOCI). When a trigger limit is breached, the area is closed to fishing for a biologically relevant period of time to allow populations of the threatened species to recover.
- Consider SOCI mortality events on a multi-species basis. So fishers are held accountable for all of their SOCI interactions to enable fishers to rapidly improve their practices and ensure that they are not negatively impacting multiple threatened species.
These changes are needed to ensure that populations of our iconic threatened marine life are given an opportunity to recover and no longer suffer cruel deaths in commercial gillnets.
Thank you,
Your Name & Postcode