The CEO of AFMA in his response to Andrew Wilkie states that “the fishery is managed in a sustainable and precautionary way, based on the best available science”. This makes me despair of so-called scientific decision making in Australia.
The IMAS-Neira report, on which the total spawning mass is based:
* has not been peer reviewed,
* has not been “clearly supported” by the Director of IMAS in public
* is not based on data collected for jack mackerel
* was not carried out for the purpose for which it is being used
* is based on data 10 years old
* has not been used as part of a Management Strategy Evaluation (MSE)
* contains no uncertainty statistics
* is not consistent with the large declines in historical catches of jack mackerel over the past 7 years
* presents analyses which are demonstrably wrong.
Shame on all you “scientists”, if we can call you that, who support this travesty!
Posted by Dr Andrew Wadsley on 03/08/12 at 08:28 PM
