Archived page, Comments on Fisheries Management Paper no. 131 Management Directions for Western Australia's Estuarine and Marine Embayment Fisheries

Introduction

This paper is a part of a series of papers of special significance to Recfishwest because they mark a significant advance towards "holistic" management of Western Australia's fish resources. Up until now Western Australian commercial fisheries have been managed separately from recreational fishing. The process now commenced has as its objective the integrated management of fisheries. Recfishwest strongly supports this change.

Integrated management is particularly important in many of the estuaries and embayments discussed in this paper because they are accessible to large population centres and provide the best recreational fishing opportunity for many Western Australians. In consequence these estuaries are subject to high recreational fishing pressure. It is inevitable that the high value placed on fish caught by recreational fishers will lead to a demand for an increasing share of the resource for this sector.

Recently, attention has been focussed on the integration of commercial and recreational fishing through a resource sharing process (as in the case of the Cockburn Sound blue swimmer crab fishery). However, Recfishwest has constantly emphasised that priority must be given to establishing a sustainable catch level before any compensation to or "buy-outs" of commercial licensees are considered in the resource sharing process. If this were not done, the situation would arise where licensees would be compensated for not catching fish, which they would not be able to catch in future anyway. A part of the consideration of sustainability should include an environmental allocation in the resource sharing process. This is particularly important for fish like pilchards that play a significant role in marine food chains.

Management paper no 131 presents a lot of very interesting information on commercial fishing in the estuaries and marine embayments. It is unfortunate that this cannot be matched by data on recreational catches and we all realise the need to try to provide overall catch data in the future.

The paper deals with the topic in terms of localities, management issues and strategies and then goes on to suggest a series of proposals for future management. These proposals are all directed to commercial fishing. Recfishwest agrees with these proposals in general; but believes that there will be a need to discuss them in more detail and in an interactive situation.

Proposals for future management

Recfishwest is pleased to see that the paper recognises that in many cases the community believes that commercial fishing should be completely removed from particular estuaries or embayments. We consider that the same situation exists on the south coast and that this point of view was not given enough recognition in the final outcome of Fisheries WA paper no 126.

Although Recfishwest agrees that the time has come for further reductions to be made in commercial fishing in estuaries and embayments, we believe that future management must involve both recreational and commercial fishing regulations. Two questions of particular interest are :-

How is the necessary management information on catch or fish population going to be collected when recreational fishing is the main or only kind of fishing? Doing creel surveys to regularly monitor recreational catch would be very costly. It would have to be done frequently to even out the "noise" associated with most biological variables. Direct population sampling may well be more efficient.

Recreational finfish license fees would enable more management information to be collected than at present. In some cases it may be possible to retain some commercial fishing where the licensee fishes according to certain constraints in order that his catches can be used for management information. What kind of regulation of recreational catch is going to be used in the different locations?

One of the stated objectives in paper 131 is to have consistent management rules. In general, Recfishwest agrees with this and has made the point in our submission to the first of the Regional Reviews. However, when only recreation fishing is allowed in certain estuaries and in one of them the take is too high for sustainability should we then lower the bag limit for that species throughout the region? That would be a blunt instrument indeed!

The alternatives include time or location closures as well as local bag limits; but many dedicated anglers may prefer effort restrictions by allowing only artificial lures or barbless hooks.

It is clearly premature to try to solve such problems at this early stage; but Recfishwest believes it would give better balance to the paper to try to deal with some of the future recreational fishing issues rather than restricting the discussion of management proposals to commercial fishing.

Comments on Objectives of Management

Recfishwest agrees in general with the Objectives of Management on p18; but we can not accept number 5. Many years ago wild duck were shot for the market on estuaries; but when pressure arose, the needs of consumers had to be sacrificed. As the pressures of recreational fishing increased up to the present, commercial estuary fish were replaced on the table by other fish or other food products and these changes will continue.

In regard to point 4 of the objectives, market forces are a useful method for allocating access between commercial fishers; but they are not as easily applied to allocating access between commercial and recreational fishers and they are not at all appropriate for allocating access between the environment and other sectors, or for allocating absolute access levels. One interesting way in which market forces can be used is via a purchased tag system for high value fish. This can even be used for resource sharing between commercial and recreational sectors.

Summary

Recfishwest supports the general thrust of this paper. Recfishwest would like to be involved in any further processes to consider detailed proposals and implement the overall objectives.



This page last updated on 30 December 2003.