The Independent Member for Denison, Andrew Wilkie, has condemned the Prime Minister for pushing ahead with the registration of the super trawler headed for Australia despite a huge question mark over the legality of the ship’s fishing quota.
In response to repeated questioning from Mr Wilkie today, Julia Gillard refused to commit to suspending the registration process for the Margiris until the Commonwealth Ombudsman has completed her enquiry into the legality of the fishing quota relevant to the vessel.
“The Australian Fisheries Management Authority has admitted it didn’t take the Fisheries Administration Act literally when it decided the quota relevant to the Margiris,’’ Mr Wilkie said.
“As a result the Commonwealth Ombudsman is looking into AFMA’s administrative processes that determined this fishing quota.
“But yet today in the House the Prime Minister refused to suspend the registration process to flag the ship to fish in Commonwealth waters until the Ombudsman has finalised her enquiry.
“So here we have a quota that is illegal and not worth the paper it’s written on, the Ombudsman looking into the matter and massive community opposition to the proposal. But still the Federal Government is happy to let the registration process for the vessel continue as normal.
“This is plain wrong. The registration process for the super trawler must be put on hold until the Ombudsman concludes her enquiries.
“To do anything else would make a mockery of proper process.
“We need to get to the bottom of this before the Federal Government allows this factory ship to start fishing in Australian waters.
“If this quota is found to be illegal there’s no basis for the ship being here so the Margiris may as well turn around and go back to where it came from.’’
Download:
HANSARD_Aug_16.pdf
• Jon Sumby: A Backgrounder on the Margiris
From user-groups to stakeholders? The public interest in fisheries management
http://conserveonline.org/workspaces/tncstrategiesconference/conferenceproceedings/session3/workshop33/MikalsenJentoft2001StakeholdersInFisheriesManagement.pdf
Fisheries management has long been characterised by strong user-group involvement, created to enhance the legitimacy and proficiency of decisions. Due to perennial problems of overfishing and resource depletion, the privileged position of users are increasingly being challenged, and there have been calls for more inclusive and democratic institutions. Fish, it is argued, is a public resource and should be managed through institutional arrangements that take the public interest into account.
Abdicating Responsibility:The Deceits of Fisheries Policy
http://www.aae.wisc.edu/dbromley/pdfs/fisheriesifq.pdf
The imperiled status of global fish stocks offers clear evidence of the comprehensive failure of national governments to provide coherent
management to protect those stocks. The universal policy response to this failure seems to consist of nothing more imaginative than the free gifting
to the commercial fishing sector of permanent endowments of income and wealth under the utopian claims associated with individual transferable quotas
(ITQs). It now seems that the fishing industry is to be entrusted to become exemplary stewards, to become efficient, to maximize resource rent, to
stop racing for fish, and to make society better off. These exultant promises are rendered false by the incoherent models from fisheries economics that are
confused about the essential concepts of:
The Blessing of Commons: Small Scale Fisheries, Community Property Rights, and Coastal Natural Assets
http://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1058&context=peri_workingpapers&sei-redir=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fscholar.google.com.au%2Fscholar%3Fstart%3D10%26q%3Dfisheries%2B%2522political%2Binterests%2522%26hl%3Den%26as_sdt%3D1%2C5#search=%22fisheries%20political%20interests%22
Following the influential article of Garrett Hardin titled ‘tragedy of the commons,’ it is part of both popular and scholarly belief that unless natural resources are strictly in the domain of private or state property, their fate is inevitable ruin. Closer examination of the actions of low income communities who depend on natural resources for their daily livelihoods has recently brought to the fore a more positive view about human proclivity for caring and nurturing common resources found in nature.
The Management of Fisheries and Marine Ecosystems
http://mk.geo.uu.nl/homepages/Peter/teaching/Themes/Botsford.pdf
The global marine fish catch is approaching its upper limit. The number of overfished populations, as well as the indirect effects of fisheries on marine ecosystems, indicate that management has failed to achieve a principal goal, sustainability. This failure is primarily due to continually increasing harvest rates in response to incessant sociopolitical pressure for greater harvests and the intrinsic uncertainty in predicting the harvest that will cause population collapse. A more holistic approach incorporating interspecific interactions and physical environmental influences would contribute to greater sustainability by reducing the uncertainty in predictions. However, transforming the management process to reduce the influence of pressure for greater harvest holds more immediate promise.
Strengthening governance of ocean fishery resources
http://directory.umm.ac.id/Data%20Elmu/jurnal/E/Ecological%20Economics/Vol31.Issue2.Nov1999/975.pdf
Governance of the world’s marine fisheries is ill-adapted to sustainability. Twenty years after the expansion of exclusive economic zones over most of the continental shelves, fisheries worldwide face problems of stock depletion,
declining yields and increasing conflict. Other human activities in the ocean compound the effect. What is wrong? This paper is about the internal workings of fishery governance and their links to fishery outcomes. The theme of this
paper is that there are fundamental weaknesses in the way fishery governance works that contribute to sustainability problems.
This one is directly related to small pelagic fisheries and is highly relevant to the Margiris debate:
On the multiple uses of forage fish: From ecosystems to markets
http://www.seaaroundus.org/researcher/dpauly/PDF/2006/Books&Chapters/HumanConsumptionForageFishConsumption.pdf
Forage fish are often described as the prey for other animals to forage on, and are composed primarily of small and some medium-sized pelagic fish. Forage fish are used directly for human food and reduced to fishmeal and fish oil for industrial purposes. These fishes tend to form large dense schools, which make them easy to catch using little fuel energy, especially in comparison with demersal fish, typically caught by bottom trawling. Small pelagics play a crucial role in most ecosystems because they are the group that transfers energy from the plankton to the larger fishes and marine mammals. The direct dependence of these relatively short-lived fishes on plankton, itself impacted by environmental fluctuations, often causes the biomass of these fishes to fluctuate.
This has led many fisheries scientists to conclude that fisheries have little impact on small pelagics, as their abundance seems determined mainly by environmental factors. Presently their catch is about 32 million tonnes per year, a staggering 37% of global marine landings.
Most of this catch is used to produce fishmeal and fish oil for use in both agriculture and aquaculture. The aquaculture industry is increasing, especially the farming of carnivorous species, and requires increasing supplies of fishmeal and fish oil, met in part by an increase of the fraction of global fishmeal supply being diverted away from agriculture and, for some species, the human food supply, and by increasing the pressure on small pelagics, including species that were previously unexploited.
The intense pressure on small pelagics has a number of consequences, notably a depletion of the food base of marine mammals and seabirds. Indeed this effect is so strong that it has become, in many parts of the world, a cause for the decline of seabird and marine mammal populations, e.g., as early as 1965 for seabirds in Peru, and currently for marine mammals in the Mediterranean.
Management Of Coastal Fishery Resources
http://www2008.spc.int/DigitalLibrary/Doc/FAME/FFA/Reports/FFA_1992_068.pdf
Throughout the world, many coastal fisheries have reached full development. The past few decades saw many appraisals of deep-water fish stocks followed by major efforts towards developing the identified resources. As a result of the rapid progress of development, increased populations and increased demand for fish, many countries now have strong needs for monitoring and continuous assessment of the status of their fishery resources.
Rules of Privatization: Contradictions in Neoliberal Regulation of North Pacific Fisheries
http://utopia.sbs.ohio-state.edu/faculty/bmansfield/paper-pdfs/Annals-2004.pdf
Recent changes in fisheries regulation in the U.S. North Pacific reveal how neoliberalism is constituted in practice, and the forms that neoliberalism takes when it engages with environmental management and ecological processes. Whereas neoliberalism can be taken as a political economic philosophy that posits that markets, without state involvement, can best allocate resources, the history and practice of neoliberalism show that it is not as unified as it often appears. Analysis of contemporary fisheries policy reveals not only contradictions in neoliberal approaches, but also how those contradictions are shaped by the environmental context of the industry.
Fisheries management: Hijacked by neoliberal economics
http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/ecologicaleconomics/BenYami27.htm
This is a story about a fashionable political-economic ideology that has taken over the management of many fisheries. It happened as a matter-of-fact offshoot, sort of by-catch, of the neoliberal or neoclassical paradigm.
Interdecadal variability of anchoveta abundance and overcapacity of the fishery in Peru
http://www.crh-eme.ird.fr/team/pfreon/PDF/Freon_et_al_Progr_Oceanogr_2008_overcapacity.pdf
Paleontological and historical stock abundance estimates indicate that pelagic fish populations inhabiting upwelling ecosystems undergo large interdecadal variations in abundance with amplitudes equal to, if not larger than, the interannual variability. The interdecadal variability is characterized by periods of high and low abundance, termed ‘‘pseudo-cycles”, because of their irregular periodicity. Fisheries targeting small pelagic fish suffer from overall overcapitalization, like many other fisheries, but also from an additional overcapitalization problem: a phase displacement between rapid fish population decreases and a slower disinvestment which follows. This lag produces economic hardship.
• Peter Whish-Wilson: New Greens move against super trawler, here
• Whtch Peter Whish-Wilson speaking at the Margiris Rally here:
• Greens call on all Tasmanian Senators to stand up for fishers
Senator Peter Whish-Wilson, Greens spokesperson on Tasmanian marine issues, is calling on Labor and Liberal Senators to support Tasmanian recreational fishers who yesterday exited Minister Ludwig’s Working Group due to a “lack of detailed scientific knowledge”*.
The Australian Greens will move a motion in the Senate on Monday to disallow the Small Pelagic Fishery quota which, if successful, would prevent the Super trawler from operating.
“The unprecedented introduction of this factory trawler, which has an appetite of over 90,000 tons of fish per year, to the Australian Small Pelagic Fishery presents grave risks for our fish stocks, our ecosystems, and our communities that depend on them.” said Senator Peter Whish-Wilson.
“Clearly Tasmanians believe we should fish for the future and that the unaddressed risks and unanswered questions mean that the imminent arrival of the FV Margiris is unacceptable given the lack of detailed scientific data.” he continued.
“The Greens motion on Monday gives all parties the opportunity to stop talking about this issue and take real action and I urge all Senators to listen to the unified voice of conservationists, recreational fishers, and concerned Australians across the country.” he concluded.
* Rec Fishers Exit Ministers Working Group – http://www.tarfish.org/documents/SPF%20Media%20Statement%2020120817.pdf
• MINISTER LUDWIG INCREASINGLY ISOLATED ON FISHERY SCIENCE
Kim Booth MP
Greens Primary Industries Spokesperson
Saturday, 18 August 2012
Greens Primary Industries Kim Booth today said that the withdrawal of TARFish from the Federal Government’s Small Pelagic Fishery Working Group was another nail in the coffin of the super trawler FV Margiris.
“Minister Ludwig’s attempt to silence the fishing community by drawing them in behind closed doors has failed and he now has no excuses left for failing to act,” Mr Booth said.
“TARFish’s withdrawal is further confirmation that the Greens’ actions in both the State and Federal Parliament to prevent this marine plunderer operating in our waters have been justified.”
“It once again shows how seriously deficient the assessment process was, and how granting an operating permit to this ship would create a serious danger for Australia’s fish stocks.”
