Whilst the NSW Labor Party continues to buy the Green vote by increasing sanctuary zones around Seal Rocks and the Solitary Islands Marine Park (12 per cent to 19 per cent), leading marine scientists such as Stark, Kearney and Telzey, question whether they are beneficial or political tools.
If we examine the commercial, recreational and environmental value of these Marine Parks, we must examine “do they meet Marine Park criteria”.
1. The Marine Parks in NSW are not marine protected areas and no amount of misuse of information will make them so.
2. Science that was used to create existing parks has been proven deliberately biased and misleading, to the extent of being fraudulent.
3. The process of creation of marine parks in NSW contravened the state’s national, and Australia’s international, commitments to firstly identify threats to marine environments and then to base management to address these threats (EPBC Act, Commonwealth of Australia 1990).
4. The current process deliberately fails in meeting the state’s commitments that management is proportional to the threat.
5. Current Marine Parks in NSW are nothing more than restrictions on fishing. There is no science that relates fishing to be a threat. The theory that sanctuary zones will protect fish and aquatic environment for future generations is fundamentally fallacious. Most of Australia’s harvested fish are migratory.
6. Fishing closures in NSW have been in effect for 15 years and data shows there is marginal change but no benefit. In fact, some sanctuary zones in Tasmania have been detrimental to fish populations.
If you consider the above, it shows this NSW Labor Government is using marine parks as nothing more than a vote buying tool. In 16 years they have not considered or acted upon the main marine environmental destroyers of pollution, agriculture, introduced species, development and mismanagement by governments.
M J Mcfie
Hastings Poin
