Fishing and conservation news articles and events in Tasmania

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19/01/10 report on overfishing - Thesis on Australian fisheries management released

A University of Tasmania thesis is now available online which examines several Australian fisheries in depth. Australian governments are committed by policy statements to apply the ecosystem and precautionary approaches. However the thesis finds that, in the case studies examined, there is little or no evidence that fishery managers have implemented comprehensive measures towards applying these approaches -- sometimes in contravention of clear statutory obligations. The author of the thesis, Dr Jon Nevill, argues that, to protect fish stocks and both recreational and commercial fisheries, fishery management agencies need to be replaced with agencies focused on the protection and management of aquatic biodiversity. Link: http://www.tucs.org.au/~cnevill/marinePhD.htm

 

23/01/10 New review paper: Temperate marine reserves: global ecological effects and guidelines for future networks

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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