Fisheries & Ecosystem Management
Under offshore constitutional settlement between the Australian States and the Australian Government, the management of fisheries within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park is the responsibility of the Queensland Government through the Queensland Department of Primary Industries & Fisheries.
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, in its aim to protect the natural qualities of the Great Barrier Reef whilst providing for reasonable use of the Region, contributes to fisheries management through the use of management zones which restrict fishing activities, and also through involvement in fisheries management planning conducted by the Queensland Government.
The Authority recognises that the harvesting of fisheries resources is an important and reasonable use of the Marine Park and consistent with use of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area. However, it also acknowledges that fishing affects target species, non-target species and their habitats and consequently has the potential for producing ecological effects in both the fished areas and the reef system as a whole. The Authority is working to ensure that all fishing activities in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and World Heritage Area are ecologically sustainable.
Through collaboration with fisheries management agencies and stakeholders, the Authority will seek to:
- Minimise ecological impact through the restriction, cessation or mandatory adoption of new technologies to minimise ecological damage of those fishing activities that can be judged, using the best available information, to be significantly damaging the ecosystems
- Establish a comprehensive system of protected areas that are representative of the complex range of ecological communities found in the Marine Park. (Representative Areas)
- Ensure adequate monitoring and assessment are undertaken to determine the impacts of fishing activities and the status of harvested stocks, non-target species and the ecosystems on which they depend
- Undertake and sponsor research designed to quantify the ecological impact of fishing activities judged to be ecologically damaging
- Ensure that ecologically sustainable fishing activities are managed in a way that is maintained in perpetuity.
The Authority aims to ensure understanding of, and compliance with the management regimes in the Great Barrier Reef Region through public information and education programs and the adoption of satellite monitoring and communications technology.
The Authority is developing ongoing and effective communications with, stakeholders associated with fisheries in the entire World Heritage Area. These stakeholders include commercial, recreational and indigenous fishers, conservation groups, other community groups and government agencies.
Each commercial fishery is the subject of a specialist Management Advisory Committee. Each Committee is in the process of developing a Fisheries Management Plan with an objective of sustainability. The Authority and the Fisheries Agencies are collaborating in substantial programs assessing the effects of fishing or Fisheries Impact Research. A major project has recently concluded on the impact of trawl fishing (addressing issues such as ecosystem effects, effort and by-catch) and another is in progress on reef line fisheries.
Areas of seabed fished by commercial trawling are likely to be subjected to significant impacts and management options to minimise these impacts on the inter-reefal and lagoonal benthos are being considered.
Other management initiatives involve mesh net fishery restrictions in Dugong Protection Areas and harvest quotas for some species.
In most of the fisheries, programs to reduce capacity are in progress. The ultimate objectives of ecologically sustainable fisheries which are also economically and socially sustainable are shared by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and Fisheries Managers. The process of reaching that desirable state involves a number of complex and contentious matters of policy development and implementation.
With the increasing national and global demand for fish resources, an increasing population with more leisure time and appreciation of resource use by indigenous fishers, it is important to develop a strategic approach to the management of commercial, recreational and indigenous fishing in order to achieve ecological sustainability.