Leading Australia marine scientist and conservation planner Professor Hugh Possingham speaks out on the fatal flaws in the Government’s proposed marine parks plan for the South West region of Australia.
You can make a submission on the draft plan until August 8th at Save Our Marine Life
http://www.saveourmarinelife.org.au/map-out-our-marine-lifes-future
On Tuesday Radio National’s Australia Talks focused on the past time, sport or lifestyle, depending who you talk to, of Recreational Fishing.
In particular, it was looking at threats to recreational fishing in the future. Unfortunately, the fishing lobbyists interviewed in the show nominated marine sanctuaries as one of those threats. You can here the Squid debating the issue with ex-UK-fisheries spokesperson Martin Salter here. (Note the marine sanctuaries bit is from about 17minutes into the show).
As I’ve written about previously, the recfish lobbyists who oppose marine sanctuaries have been shown to be in the minority. Opinion research shows that most recfishers support large increases in marine sanctuary protection. And, research from after Australia’s biggest marine sanctuaries at Nignaloo and the Great Barrier Reef shows that feared negative impacts on fishing were not realised.
Australia’s marine science community has strongly criticised the Federal Government’s draft marine parks plan for the South West region of Australia for not meeting basic scientific benchmarks for marine protection.
See article in The West Australian here.
The draft plan is open for comment until the 8th August, you can have your say at:
The Happy Squid Blog 