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Fishing and conservation news articles and events in New South WalesFFC state pages are a new addition to the site if you have news or events to contribute please Email: fisherfc@internode.on.net Want to form a FFC State or regional chapter? Click here to find out how
Author: Simon Black Posted: Thursday, 22 July 2010 News article on the NSW moratorium bill featuring comment from FFC. "Environmental groups say the NSW Government has ignored overwhelming scientific evidence and community support with their decision to endorse a five-year moratorium on new marine parks in NSW. The Marine Parks Amendment (Moratorium) Bill was introduced to Parliament in June by Robert Brown of the Shooters Party and stops both the creation of new parks and changes to the sanctuary areas in existing parks." Full Article
Is NSW set for a great leap backward on Marine Protection? Fishers For Conservation has today rejected the notion that all recreational fishers are opposed to marine protected areas, following the NSW Shooters Party’s introduction of a Bill to place a five year moratorium on the creation of new marine parks, and changes to sanctuary areas within existing marine parks. Shooters Party MP Robert Brown has cited the need for more science on marine parks as justification for this moratorium but Fishers for Conservation believes the science is in – marine parks are an important part of protecting our fishing future. “Scientists around the world overwhelmingly agree that marine parks are effective and are a necessary part of marine conservation. Marine parks in places like New Zealand are now scientifically proven to be effective and are broadly supported by fishers, many of whom were initially opposed to their creation,” recreational fisher, marine biologist, secretary and spokesperson Josh Coates said. “Clearly there is a need to balance the access to fishing with the protection of our marine environments and fish stocks for the future of both fishing and the environment. The rhetoric of ‘lockouts’ that is being bandied around by anti-conservation groups is misleading - NSW marine parks are multiple use allowing fishing in most areas and are designed to protect the marine environment, and therefore the future of fishing.” “What this bill effectively would do is remove the opportunity for improvement to existing marine parks, including changes that could potentially improve fishing access while protecting habitat and species in areas that are not regularly used by fishers. Meanwhile the bill would prevent new areas being protected – protection which would ultimately benefit fish and fishing.”
Extract: Available evidence indicates that temperate no-take marine reserves have higher densities, biomass, and species richness of marine biota within their boundaries compared to areas outside reserves. Fish density and biomass in particular are higher in no-take than in adjacent areas, which is consistent with previous analyses (Mosqueira et al. 2000; Côtéet al. 2001; Halpern 2003; Micheli et al. 2004; Claudet et al. 2008). We also found that algal densities are higher inside reserves, which may indicate a trophic effect. In temperate systems, the common grazers such as sea urchins often reach high densities in the presence of fishing because their predators are removed from the system, and thus this result suggests a return to a more intact ecosystem state inside reserves (Behrens & Lafferty 2004).
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22/04/10
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