Bottom trawling plans cause alarm

Kimberley fishermen say they have grave concerns over the Australian Fisheries Management Authority’s (AFMA) plans to allow bottom trawling in the North West Slope Trawl Fishery by the end of this month.

Representative for local trap and line fishery, Northern Demersal Scale Fishery (NDSF), and secretary of the Kimberley Professional Fishing Association, Bob Masters, said the idea trawling could be allowed in an area equal to an eighth of the size of Tasmania was alarming.

He said trawlers had not fished on the reef area since Taiwanese trawlers were banned from entering it in the 1970s because of the environmental damage they were causing – and it took at least 30 years for reef areas to regenerate.

He said the area was meant to have been closed to such activities entirely in 1998 when the AFMA, which manages the prawn trawl fishery and is part of the Department for Agriculture Fisheries and Forestry, wrote to trawlers saying the area had been described incorrectly. "The Commonwealth fishery is meant to be in waters greater than 200m,” it said.

But the area was not closed permanently.

“A recent harvest strategy allows this deep water prawn trawl fishery [North West Slope Trawl Fishery] to take more fish than scampi [prawns]," Mr Masters said. “One third of the trawl catch is thrown back.”

”We fish for tropical snappers in this area and our fishery has strict effort quota restrictions to ensure stock sustainability.

“Trawlers have not been allowed into the area since the Taiwanese trawlers were stopped in the 1970s. Since then the seabed habitats have regrown and the fish communities have been replenished.”

Environs Kimberley acting director Emma Belfield said the industry provided high quality fish for the Australian market, but, unlike trawling, did not destroy seafloor communities.

“Trawling destroys coral reefs and sponge gardens that may be hundreds of years old,” she said.

“Trawling also kills high-risk and protected species, such as sea snakes and sharks, as bycatch.”

With shallow areas up to 30m in depth, the area in question is known to be dotted with coral reefs, sponges and seagrass areas.