Tuesday, Jan 27, 2009 at 15:55
Shifting goal posts.
I don't think many these days would condone the "freezer fishers" mentality!
As one who in the past has appeared on the TV fishsing shows with the likes of Starlo - and advocated "catch & release" - these days I no longer do.
Thats because the goal posts have changed.
Fisheries managers and professional fishers (who rape and pillage our oceans) have colluded together to create a NEW system that exploits recreational anglers willingness to take bag reductions willingly - in order to disenfranchise them from a fair and equitable share of the "Total Allowable Catch" (part that can be sustainably harvested).
This "new system" is something Fisheries managers call "IFM".
It stands for "Integrated Fisheries Management".
In and of itself - it SOUNDS like a great new tool for management and administered correctly it could well be just that!
The problems arise when we have high value fisheries worth many many $ millions per year of foreign export revenues at risk - if an equitable share were given to recreational anglers - in a climate where fishstocks are unquestionably collapsing!
Examples of high value export fisheries Abalone, Lobsters Prawns Pearls etc
The Lobster industry is a good & currently topical example.
The industry in WA has been worth up to $600,000,000 (Six Hundred Million Dollars) a year in export revenues to the state inyears past - and there are about 600 licenses - so in effect every lobster fisherman makes about a Million a year.
Some 'industry moguls' own large shareholdings of many of the high value industries i.e they own entire prawn trawling fleets and multiple lobster licenses and processing export factories / multiple Abalone Licenses and export factories and Many pearl farms both here in Oz and overseas as well.
These folks make enough a year to be able to successfully bribe our politicians by making very large "annonymous donations" to major political parties election campaigns, in return for "special favors' from Fisheries Minsters & Fisheries CEO's etc when it comes to legislation.
Thats easey to say and usually hard to prove..but occasionally a few of the minions come unstuck via the Crime Corruption Commission hearings etc
eg
http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?Men...ontentID=115936
[quote] The department, (Fisheries) which recently lost its chief executive and two senior fisheries officers to a corruption scandal,
[/quote]
So - we have Industry Moguls of the Ilk like Paspaley (Pearl & Prawning interests) who secretly bought out another Fish9ng Monopoly (Kailis Fisheries) but kept it quiet for 6 months or more because it was not advantageous for the public to know that one great monopoly was aiming to own and control ALL high value commercial fisheries in WA, and didn't want it to be "obvious" that official corruption was involved in realizing that dream - the Fisheries minsiter and his party werebeing "paid off" to allow it to happen.
So
How was IFM (Integrated Fisheries Management) an otherwise innocuous fishery managment tool - used against recreational anglers?
Well - one of the tenets of IFM is this.
Once biologiocal assessements of the "total (ecologically sustainable) allowable catch" (TAC) are determined by marine biologists, those TAC figures are distributed among the professional recreational and traditional indigenous user groups on a historical catch percentage basis.
Now as mentioned before Rec anglers have for years willingly accepted bag reductions as part & parcell of the 5 year West Coast, South Coast, Gascoign, etc Review process.
However one of the shortcommings of IFM...is that theres no allowance for the growth of rec anglers numbers as our
population increases!
As additional pressure mounts from growing participants the bag limitof Rec Fisheres TAC has to be reduced to go across the increasing participants.
Eventually when theres not enough rec share of TAC resource for a bag limit of 1 fish per angler per day, Rec anglers will be required to BUY BACK from professional anglers at going market rates a percentage of THEIR TAC (Total Allowable Catch) to maintain bag limits!
Yes - we will have to PAY the pros to stay
home and watch us go out to catch a fish - that most are advocating we should then release!
So - this is how the corrupt Fisheries Minister and his corrupt Fisheries dept staff "stole" the rec fishers share of the resource ahead of the IFM catch distribution process.
The Minister at the direction of the industry mogul, would "arbitrarily" halve the recreational bag limit of say Blue Manna Crabs as but one shining example saying publicly he had scientific evidence they were under threat.
(Remember there is a formal west coast review process every 5 years to reduce bag limits with consesus of rec anglers) This decision was taken without rec fisher consultation and outside the formal review process.
Yet his own Fisheries Dept Annual reports would show that Pro Catch averages of 50 tonnes from that system - had been exceeded to 85 tonnes in that record professional catch year!
Kinda makes a mockery of the suggestion the resource is under threat from excessive recreational catch during a record pro catch year!.
At the same time he would set up a 3 year creel survey to establish "the recreational catch statistics". (These of course will reveal a 50% decline from REAL figures because the bag limit was arbitrarily halved).
Thus in 3 years time when the TAC is researched and published - the allocation to rec fishers will be only 50% of what the REAL recreational catch statistics should have ensured.
In effect the Pros will get 50% of the rec fishers %age entitlement under TAC BECAUSE the then Fisheries minister arbitrarily made a decision ahead of the IFM process, that halved the rec catch and set up a statistics project to cement that figure prior to introducing the new IFM principles into manageing that fishery such that the pros will reap that increased share!
The same things have happened in the Lobster Fishery
Rec Prawning banned altogether!
Etc Etc etc
This is what happens when pro industry moguls who are multi millionaires and billionaires start using those $ to bribe the politicians & public servants in charge of the process.
For the rec angler......only one choice is left!
Kill & Eat your bag limit and make sure it is in the creel survey results in order to get a fair as possible IFM allocation of the TAC - which will then diminishg every year thereafter in terms of bag limits as participant numbers in rec fishing increase and we then face the prospect of BUYING BACK the privelege from Pro fishers - to go out and catch a fish
If you C&R - you might as well just GIVE our Recreational anglers share of the TAC resource to the pros and sell your fishing rods now.
You see the goal posts have changed - Australias fisheries will likely become a monopoly ownership by one or two industry moguls who can BUY state and federal politicians and Public Servants to do their bidding and use their positions of power to disenfranchise recreational anglers of their far share of the resouce bye corrupting the IFM process in a way its =creators never dreampt of!
Our only way out - in the future under the current system - will be to BUY those resource rights back.
So in short - if we don't catch and eat our bag limit we are just giving them to the pros & will have to eventually buy them back - yep pay th epros to stay
home and watch us go out for a fish.
Dunno bout you but to me that sucks big time.
And that from a devout C & R fan who now advocates Kill N eat!
Don't blame me - I didn't invent the now corrupted IFM process and I didn't buy off any Corrupt Fisheries Minsiters or Fisheries Dept Staff!
Quite simply we are being robbed and worse - anything we don;t kill and eat we might just as well GIVE to the pros, coz under IFM thats what happens in perpetuity for every fish you release.
Sure it's all bass ackwards but I didn;t invent the system - I'm just the ONLY guy in Australian Rec Fishing Circles blowing the whistle at the moment!
A LOT of the Rec Fishing Community are still being blinded by all the smoke & Mirrors!
Hopefully they will wake up when they join the dots - but bye then it will be too late because the fix is already in and the political donations deals behind closed doors have already been done!!
Guys like Rex (bless him) and Buschy and Starlo (and dare I say Myself) - were RIGHT at the time to promote C & R angling practices under the rules in place at the time as the responsible thing to do!
Those times & rules have now changed because the Politicians and Pro Fishing Industry Moguls - corruptly worked out a way to change the goal posts and USE Recreational anglers concern for the future of the resource, as a TOOl to strip them of their historical right to an equitable share of the resources Total Allowable Ecologically Sustainable Catch biomass and take that share for themselves for a hefty profit!
Simple - the goal posts have changed - we got to half time and now we are kicking towardthe other end of the oval fellas - time to wake up now or pony up your $ afterwards to BUY back what rightfully belongs to us now!
The corrupt pros have stolen "catch & release" from us rec anglers and are now using it (under the guise of IFM) Integrated Fisheries Management to swindle us!
"Catch & Eat - it's the new Rec Fishers Call To Arms!
Sorry for the "war & peace" length epic reply but its an important subject being largely ignored by rec fishers. Fisheries Consulting is something I do - and someone did ask the question / post the thread and this is an issue comming to you soon no matter where in Aus you live!!
Theres the bad guys taking more than their limit they will always be crooks - but theres the broader issue here - the big picture if you will.
Catch & eat a few fish - its your right as an Australian citizen and recreational fisherman, and one you'll soon be paying some industry billionaire pro fishing mogul and a few corrupt politicians for the right to buy it back!
Cheers
AnswerID:
346174
Follow Up By: kev.h - Tuesday, Jan 27, 2009 at 18:47
Tuesday, Jan 27, 2009 at 18:47
Hey Mate slow down or you,ll get RSI then you wont be able to fish at all
I do agree we have to get off our backsides and do something now before its too late - good wake-up call
Where to from here?
Cheers Kev
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614166