[Birdbycatch] News release from Australia

[Liz Mitchell]

News release from Humane Society International:


HUMANE SOCIETY INTERNATIONAL - Action Alert

Strategic Assessment of East Coast Tuna and Billfish Fishery
March 2003

As required under Australia's Environment Protection and Biodiversity 
Conservation Act 1999, the Commonwealth Tuna Billfish Fishery must be 
approved by the Minister for Environment and Heritage as ecologically 
sustainable following strategic assessment. Public consultation on the 
Strategic Assessment has taken place and the next stage is the Ministerial 
decision.

HSI has been a member of the team developing a Threat Abatement Plan for 
the Incidental catch (or bycatch) of seabirds during oceanic longline 
fishing operations over the past five years, and have become increasingly 
frustrated by the lack of progress on implementation of effective bycatch 
mitigation devices and observer programs, not only for a number of seabird 
species, but also for sharks and sea turtles. HSI considers that because 
the interim goal of the TAP (0.05 seabirds per 1000 hooks) has not been 
achieved after five years of negotiations, the time is ripe for decisive 
action on the part of the Minister's office.

We call for your support in recommending that Dr Kemp allow pelagic 
longline fishing in Australia's EEZ to continue only under a strict permit 
system for fishers to trial bycatch mitigation measures that have a high 
chance of success, similar to the situation instated by the Pacific 
Fisheries Management Council in the United States.In October 2002, the 
Pacific Fishery Management Council adopted an unprecedented fishery 
management plan prohibiting use of pelagic longline gear in the waters off 
California, Oregon and Washington out to 200 nautical miles. Under the PFMC 
management plan fishers are still able to apply for an exempted fishing 
permit to test new mitigation measures. These measures give fishers the 
option of cooperating with efforts to become ecologically sustainable, but 
remove the option for a continuance of the status quo.

In another example of responsible management of bycatch issues, June 2001 
saw the US National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) determine that pelagic 
longline fisheries in the north Atlantic were threatening the existence of 
Atlantic leatherback and loggerhead turtles. To protect these endangered 
species, the NMFS closed the area where bycatch concentration was the 
greatest. This closed area encompassed 2.6 million nautical square miles 
and included the Grand Banks, off the coast of New England.

HSI's call for the fishery to be closed to all but those fishermen 
pro-actively working to solve their bycatch problems is now also consistent 
with international scientific and conservation opinion on longline fishing 
in the Pacific. Last month, 400 scientists, including some of the world's 
most eminent wildlife scientists, recommended that the UN place a 
moratorium on longline fishing in the Pacific to protect marine wildlife, 
their particular concern being for the endangered Leatherback turtle.

As a range of actions under the TAP and the Bycatch Action Plan have not 
been undertaken, HSI has recommended that this fishery does not pass 
strategic assessment.

ACTION:
Write to Australia's Minister for Environment & Heritage Dr David Kemp 
(Parliament House, Canberra ACT 2600) urging that he does not approve the 
Strategic Assessment for Commonwealth Tuna and Billfish Fisheries under 
current arrangements which you believe do not meet Environment Australia's 
criteria for ecological sustainable fisheries, for example because the 0.05 
birds/1000 hooks objective has not been reached and a comprehensive 
observer program prescribed by the TAP in 1998 has not been put in place. 
Ask that he wait until both the Threat Abatement Plan for Seabirds and the 
Bycatch Action Plan have been revised and improved, and measure them 
against the criteria for EPBCA accreditation. Recommend that the fishery 
only be accredited if it is closed to all but fishers willing to trial 
effective mitigation measures with observer coverage. When considering 
accreditation of the Commonwealth Tuna and Billfish Fisheries, advise that 
he uses his powers under the EPBCA to impose strict conditions to ensure 
that the goals of the reviewed TAP and Bycatch Action Plan are actually met 
this time around.



Elizabeth Mitchell
P.O. Box 933
Eugene, Oregon 97440
U.S.A.
Tel: 541/ 935-0858
Message Tel: 541/344-5503
E-mail: emitch@efn.org