If this doesn't make your blood boil, nothing will!!
This report by the ANU Centre for Climate Law and Policy (CCLP) outlines exactly what the enviro academics in Canberra are proposing.
For the future of fishing in all forms in much of Australia, this is seriously scary stuff and the title alone, "The Displaced Activities Analysis" has enough clues to tell you that at best, Australian fishers are academically perceived as, collateral damage: http://www.environment.gov.au/coasts/mb ... alysis.pdf
In a nutshell our appointed National Professors of environmental law want: - CLOSURE of or SEVERELY RESTRICTED fishing access to 56% of our coastal waters. - NO COMPENSATION to employees of commercial fishing operations or land based marine industries. Workers who lose jobs as a consequence of the closures can go on the dole - or seek unpaid re-training in some other field! - NO automatic compensation for businesses sent bust by the closures.
Adam Gallash
Posts: 15665
Date Joined: 29/11/05
link
May need to fix the link BIG, doesnt appear to be working.
Site Admin - Just ask if you need assistance
bod
Posts: 2321
Date Joined: 03/05/06
might be this one
http://www.environment.gov.au/coasts/mbp/publications/pubs/mpa-dap-analysis.pdf
Tony Halliday
Posts: 2500
Date Joined: 14/06/07
quoted from page
quoted from page 36
"
Recreational fishers
The equity arguments supporting the provision of government assistance to recreational fishers
whose activities are displaced by the creation of MPAs are weak. The rights inherent in recreational
fishing licences are temporary and susceptible to variation. Recreational fishing licences are also
classic privileges – they make an otherwise unlawful activity lawful and do not involve anything
approximating a proprietary right to fish. As a result, there is no basis from which to argue that
governments (or the community) have permanently allocated the relevant natural resources to
recreational fishers to use for extractive purposes. Recreational fishers have simply been given a
privilege to use a public resource, which by its nature can be cancelled at any time to allow the
resource to be used for alternative public purposes. In addition, the recreational fishers’ affected
interests are cultural rather than financial and they can generally mitigate their ‘losses’ by shifting
fishing grounds or pursuing alternative interests.
The difficulty with the notion that recreational fishers should receive assistance on equity grounds
can be illustrated by reversing the facts. If recreational fishers are allowed to fish in an area, should
non-extractive users of the area (e.g. conservationists, divers) whose interests are impacted by
fishing be provided with assistance? Analysis of the nature of the interests of recreational fishing
and non-extractive users suggests neither group should receive government assistance when their
activities are displaced by a change in government policy. "
this worries me in the wording of an illegal (unlawful) activity made legal by a license, in other words fishing is illegal in their eyes if a RFBL was withdrawn.
Tony Halliday: ~Meals on Reels ~
It takes a strong fish to swim against the current. Even a dead one can float with it
"It is always in season for old men to learn." Aeschylus (525-456 BC)
"In a mad world only the mad are sane." Akira Kurosawa (1910-1998)
Andy Mac
Posts: 4778
Date Joined: 03/02/06
August 2009
Seems this report was commissioned quite some time ago.
Whilst the contents of the report are decidedly dire for any rec fisho's rights to compensation based on MPAs being established, It doesn't necessarily mean that an MPA will in fact be established.
The true concern is that why would they commission such a report unless they were serious about initiating a large amopunt of MPAs.
I would never have expected any compensation for any MPA as it would be hard to do so for the rec fishing community as a whole. All the report does is discover the legal rights basis for calculating potential compensation. The report does not state anything about the number of MPA's the location of MPAs and or the restricted usage category of each MPA.
It certainly is a reg flag though and worthy of a few emails to local politiicians in marginal seats. MPA's may be inevitable but the extent of them is where some pressure needs to be applied to local government.
Access to our WA coastline is near on impossible for maybe 50% of it, so imposing massive MPA's at places where access is available is ignoring the fact that we have virtual MPA's stretching the majority of our coast (when it comes to rec fishing) due to natural inaccessibility.
Cheers
Andy Mac (Fishwrecked Reeltime Editor & Forum Moderator)
Youngest member of the Fishwrecked Old Farts Club