This just lobbed in my email - for GBR fishing tourism operators
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Review of Coral Finfish Spawning Closures



The current regulated dates for Queensland’s coral reef spawning closures finish in December this year. With no new future dates proposed for regulation the Commercial fishers and Pacific Marinelife Institute on behalf of the Fishing Tourism sector initiated urgent talks to clarify the position.



A review of the success or otherwise of the spawning closures was undertaken by JCU and unfortunately has taken much longer than anticipated to complete. In the case of the Fishing Tourism industry this uncertainty on the closure dates in future years has caused many problems for ongoing bookings. Extensive discussions have been underway during the past couple of weeks with DPI&F to solve this problem as they seemed totally oblivious to the problems now being experienced by industry.



At a SAG (Scientific Advisory Committee) meeting held last week we were able to come up with a suite of proposals for consideration at the next Reef Mac meeting in November (this would be the first opportunity and normal process to table any proposals). It seems this position changed last Thursday under pressure from ourselves and the commercial fishers, and potentially a decision is to be made in the next two weeks to go to cabinet early October.



I have included a set of proposals determined by the SAG for your comment and would appreciate if you could advise your preferred position. Unfortunately I have not yet received an official copy of the minutes detailing the proposals; however I believe the outlines taken from my own notes are accurate.



Considerations:



1. No Closures. Because there is no scientific evidence of the true impact the closures are having on maintaining the sustainability of coral trout stocks we have always taken the position that no Closures are warranted. However we do understand that this would be a step too large politically.



2. Maintain the presence status of three nine day closures. We have put the position that because of the lack of scientific data the nine days have been set more to reduce effort in the fishery than to protect spawning stocks.



There was a proposal from the commercial sector that two nine day closures could be an alternative by dropping out December. This we have rejected as such an arrangement would be purely for social reasons to catch fish for the Christmas season and prove that the spawning of the fish is not really a consideration.



3. Three five day closures (that is three days before the new moon, new moon, and the day after). Five day closures are more representative of the current scientific position. I understand the commercial sector would support this proposal, or, better still two five days closures.



Our recommendation is to work towards achieving the best possible outcomes related to the five day closures.



Because of the short time frame your comments and recommendation at the earliest would be appreciated. If you wish to contact me direct to discuss this matter please call me on 0402 317 612.



Regards



Ray Joyce

ray.joyce@pacificmarinelife.com

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