Australian fishermen who were paid millions of dollars just five years ago to change their fishing operations because of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park could now be paid again to shut down altogether.
Fishing operators have told the Herald they went through a difficult adjustment in 2007 and 2008 to start fishing further out from the coast, beyond the marine park.
Now, after the government announced last week a network of marine reserves that curb fishing in the Coral Sea, beyond the reef, they face further painful changes or possible closure.
The government has said it would provide about $100 million in assistance for the industry adjustment, including buyouts of businesses. However, the figure has been scorned by fishermen, who point out the park – a smaller area – has cost $250 million in assistance and rising.
The marine reserve network will cover 3 million square kilometres, or a third of Commonwealth waters, though only parts will ban fishing entirely.
Lyle Squire, a director of Cairns Marine, which catches tropical fish, sharks and rays for pet shops, aquariums and researchers around the world, said his family company received millions of dollars in late 2007 to buy larger boats and other equipment so that it could fish in the Coral Sea after the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park was established.
”The ridiculous thing out of all that is not only that they’ve paid a bunch of money to us to relocate our business out there to the Coral Sea but according to their own research permits, there is no question about the sustainability of our fishery. The footprint of our fishery is absolutely negligible.”
Mr Squire said his family business, which employed 32 people, would lose productive fishing grounds. And it would pay dramatically higher levies to the Commonwealth’s Australian Fisheries Management Authority if other operators in the same fishing zone left the industry.
”If we are unable to continue to afford accessing the Coral Sea, then our business will not survive in its current form,” he said.
2012. Fairfax Media.