SEAFISH Tasmania has lost its second bid to use its super trawler in Australian waters.
Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke last night moved to ban Seafish Tasmania from using the Abel Tasman, formerly called the FV Margiris, as a “floating freezer”.
Mr Burke’s intervention comes in the middle of the Australian Fisheries Management Authority assessment of Seafish’s transhipment proposal.
Under the proposal, the 143-metre long mid-water trawler would never need to cast its nets. Instead smaller vessels would catch Seafish’s quota of red bait and jack mackerel and unload the fish on to the super trawler to be processed in its freezer storage area.
“While from the company’s perspective what they have put forward is a compromise on their fishing method, the environmental consequences are similar to those which concerned me with their first proposal,” Mr Burke said yesterday.
“This government takes a highly cautious view when it comes to protecting the ocean. We take ocean protection seriously.”
Read the rest, The Examiner here
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• Richard Colbeck: Position vacant: Federal Fisheries Minister
• Peter Whish-Wilson: Australian Greens Act to Close ‘Super-Trawler 2.0’ Legal Loop-Hole
