04/09/2012
Dear Sir/Madam,
I expect that a very high proportion of your fans would be motivated to join the petition below if you were to make them aware of it. Destruction of the seafood chain will diminish the local catch (professional and recreational), reduce tourism, and will eventually fray the fabric of many small coastal communities.
This petition aims to stop a 142m super trawler which is on its way to plunder fish stocks from WA to NSW. Both Tasmanian and Victorian waters are likely to be cleaned out first as they are closest to where the ship will be based in Northern Tasmania… but this will be followed by South Australia, and parts of souther Western Australia and NSW.
A petition against the trawler has now over 16000 voices saying "stop". http://www.communityrun.org/petitions/stop-giant-fishing-trawler-in-tasmania.
If you are interested in the welfare of the southern Australian waters or the livelihood of those that live along its coastlines then you are invited to add to the voice of reason that calls on the Federal Government to step back from the brink of destruction. Please ask your fans and their friends to add their voice to this petition, and to speak with their local politicians to let them know that this issue is important to them.
Only a very small number of people associated with the company Seafish Tasmania will profit from this massive trawling. All southern states will see their professional and recreational fishermen impacted, and subsequently the industries (such as Tourism) and communities around them.
From The Mercury online:
http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2012/07/05/343021_tasmania-news.html
From an ABC interview:
http://blogs.abc.net.au/tasmania/2012/07/seafish-quotas-concerns-and-protest-meetings-wholly-mackerel.html
Some observations :
- Why does it come here? Because it, and others like it, have cleaned out the European, then the African, then the Chilean fish, where stocks have totally collapsed due to this massive-scale style of fishing.
- Although financially more efficient, it is environmentally more destructive, since the nets are so large most fish caught are crushed/drowned, so very little chance of releasing live undersized or un-targeted species.
- Claims of 1% “collateral damage” is just not believable, with fishermen indicating that it can be anything up to 50% sometimes
- With much larger capabilities than smaller boats, it can wipe out large schools of fish (whereas smaller boats only take a portion). This quickly leads to “localised wipeout”.
- In an environment where fish stocks are diminishing (for some of the fish being targeted they are at 10% the levels that they were at 30 years ago) somehow the Australian government has seen fit to double the annual quota of the catch. Without this increase it would not have been possible for this super trawler to come here, and it just happens that the head of Seafish Tasmania was a part of the process that increased that quota
- This one boat would have 5% of the total Australian quota. Even it’s direct employment of 40 people would be trivial when compared with the local boats that would catch half that quota. In addition, local fishermen are local to their communities, with all the indirect employment associated with sale/storage/transport of the catch as well as maintenance of the boats.
- Finally, if this ship is really suited to "sustainable" fishing then it would have been able to continue fishing where it was previously... clearly this has not been the case (as it is looking for the next location)... and nor will it be the case in Australian waters also.
Please help to bring this issue to the attention of your audience so that they can support actions, such as the petition, that seek to stop this terrible and imminent disaster from unfolding.
Kind regards,
Kim George
Stop the Super Trawler. One of the world’s biggest fishing trawlers with a history of over exploiting fish stocks, the FV Margiris, wants to trawl for small pelagic fish – some of the most critical species in our marine ecosystem. Small pelagic fishing around Tasmania already has a bad record. The s...
