NSW Marine Parks Decisions

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Taken from FW email newsletter

December 19, 2014

Just as we were starting to wind down for the Christmas break, the NSW Government has made two significant annoucements of interest to fishos.

The first concerns a long-awaited decision on shore-based line fishing at 30 sites in the state’s marine parks network. These sites – which include ocean beaches and rocky headlands – were part of an “amnesty†on recreational fishing declared in 2013.

Indepth studies by the Marine Estate Expert Knowledge Panel have been carried out with the result being that the Government has now made a decision to permanently allow rec fishing at 10 areas were angling is classified as “low risk†and reimpose sanctuary zone status at the remaining 20 sites where shore-based rec fishing was found to be “medium†or “high riskâ€.

This will come as a blow to anti-fishing groups which have been campaigning for the amnesty zones to be returned to blanket lock-out status.

From the rec fishing perspective, it’s good to see independent science can discriminate between fishing activity in different areas. Hopefully the same criteria can now be used to study the impacts on rec fishing in other lock-out zones. This could potentially result in areas now closed to rec fishing being reassessed and opened up for “low risk†angling activities.

Read the press release from NSW Fisheries Minister Katrina Hodgkinson and Environment Minister Rob Stokes http://yaffacdn.s3.amazonaws.com/live/fishing/files/dmfile/20141219-DECISION-ON-FISHING-AMNESTY-ANNOUNCED.pdf

and find out details on the areas involved

http://yaffacdn.s3.amazonaws.com/live/fishing/files/dmfile/20141217-OBH-factsheet_final.pdf

A FAQ can be accessed http://yaffacdn.s3.amazonaws.com/live/fishing/files/dmfile/20141218-OBH-FAQs_final.pdf