Original story by Bill Hoffman, The Queensland Times
FISH swim between states and Commonwealth waters daily but Australia still lacks a national standard that would allow better management of the resource for both commercial and recreational purposes and ecosystem health.
Fisherman on the North Shore of Maroochydore fish for tailor during the winter. Photo Nicholas Falconer, Sunshine Coast Daily
Dr Trevor Ward, who wrote the marine section of the 2011 Australian State of the Environment Report, said without a standard there would be no integrated approach to the management of the precious national resource.
He said there was an overwhelming need to increase the stock of all fish species, a move that would enable both the commercial and recreational sectors to increase catches. Dr Ward argues that ultimately only closed marine areas would allow that to occur.
Ideally stocks should be maintained at 75% of their original biomass but Dr Ward said a figure of between 40-50% would be a worthwhile initial target.
Dr Ward was commenting after the release of data that shows the commercial catch of tailor on the Cooloola-Fraser coast has fallen substantially in the past decade.
He said a huge problem was that Australia had no common language around fish management and five or six different ways of reporting sustainability.
The Queensland Government last week said the number of sustainable fish species in Queensland had risen from 28 to 31 with only one of 75, snapper, considered unsustainable with the rest being "uncertain" or "undefined".
Dr Ward said the parameters used by fisheries' managers across Australia to define sustainability were ecologically very low and in many cases represented as little as 25% of what total numbers would be if no fishing occurred.
At those levels, stocks had only limited resilience to the impacts of climate change, pests, fishing, chemical run-off and seasonal weather variations.
"Ecologists argue that sustainable fishing should maintain 75% of the unfished biomass," he said.
"The irony is that if it was at 75% - and it would take a big leap to get there - catches could be doubled from what they are now.
"It would provide security and certainty."
Dr Ward said ultimately closing areas in the right places was the only way forward that would benefit the commercial and recreational sectors.
Globally the approach had proved infinitely more successful than bag and size limits which did not control the total catch.
"The truth is that in smart fishing systems, commercial fishermen make more money when closed areas are put where they are needed."
He said the fishing industry argument was simply wrong that fisheries could only be properly managed when they had total access.
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