having attended , mandurah , busso and bunburys IFAAC meetings on the draft paper they have put out ..
some interesting and valid points have come out of them so far imo

people can consider the following imo
.the attendance has been great from rec fishers ,over a hundred at each easily .................kane moyle recfishwests principal policy officer has done a great job at these meetings to keep them on track and directing info questions .

plenty of good issues have been raised .......and most along the same theme .........ill list some of them below ........

the draft report could have under the guiding principles of IFM considered other ways to allocate the catch shares ..........social /economic return from the take of the demersal fish stock to the community is one of them ...........the committe largely seems to have ignored this ............in the report there is only a third of page on page 10 dedicated to this .............in a 61 page report !!!
it remains an area that needs to be explored and expanded upon by the committee ............and imo should be highlighted much more in the allocation process for rec fishers to get a fairer and more just share of the public resource based on what we contibute ..a 50% /50 % split seems to be more just

its questionable how can it be the best use /return on the public resource under this draft to allocate 66% of the demersal catch to such a small group of licence holders..who have clearly overfished deliberatly ?.........when already in only 7 months we have over 66 000 rec fishers licenced .and im sure a full year will give more ........


....the committee has used 05/06 data and the sectors catch history ..........
nice and easy to use .........but look at the following from state of the fisherys report 05/06

the commercial demersal fishery was given a target catch of 558-798 tons ......this was supposed to be their yearly take on estimation of sustainability .....................however read below .they took up to 50% more , and in the report it states many did this............... overfished their target catch to increase their licence or vessels share of the allocation .........these reductions of the allocation figures are based on sustainability issues ...............now the IFAAC committe is again rewarding them for overfishing , by using those high figures to allocate catch share .if the figure used was the top 798 target figure ............the % of shares would be very different i think ......
read below





FISHERY GOVERNANCE
Target catch range: 558–798 tonnesThe proposed target catch range is based on the mean from
catches in the decade 1990/91 to 1999/2000 using 80%
confidence limits around that 10-year mean. For the entire
fishery, the target catch range has been set at 558–798 t.Target catch ranges for individual species are 125–179 t
for dhufish, 153–254 t for pink snapper and 27.5–35.5 t for
baldchin groper.
For the fourth consecutive year, the catch of the entire fishery
at 1,220 t is well above the proposed target range, reflecting
the increasing mobilisation of the latent effort in the wetline
fishery in the west coast bioregion. The target range was
exceeded by 12% in 2000/01, 37% in 2001/02, 46% in
2002/03, 57% in 2003/04 and 53% in 2004/05. For the third
consecutive year all three indicator species (dhufish at 196 t,
pink snapper at 333 t and baldchin groper at 36 t) exceeded
their target catch ranges.New management initiatives (2005/06)
A review of the management arrangements for this proposed
fishery is currently underway as part of the Wetline Review.
Until specific management arrangements are implemented for
this sector, the levels of exploitation, particularly for dhufish,
can be expected to continue to rise as market demand remains
favourable, catch rates remain profitable and vessels seek to
maintain catch histories prior to management changes.When management of the demersal wetline sector is
introduced,
from the above it is clear DOF recognised the problem back then and why they where overfishing imo
very poor accountability from the DOF ...........asleep at the wheel or under resourced ??


their has been a clear call for more accurate data to be collected for rec fishers ............the figures being used by the IFAAC COMMITTEE are being called rubbery or suspect to say the least ...........a better method needs to be investigated ..........and implemented asap
rec fishers have very little faith in the information being used and how it will be collected into the future to continue to manage this demersal fishery ..how will they know when we have reached our allocated limit ?? ACCURATLEY ? 

rec fishers have little faith IFM can work for such a wide range of species now at 48 ..............very little evidence was presented to demonstrate all of these species are under threat .we all know of the v 5 ......but wirrah ?? etc .............many  would like to see more evidence

from a rec fishers perspective IFM has not been giving them a fair deal with rock lobster , a single species ..........rec fishers allocation here was small at 5% .........we havent taken our full allocation each year ..........yet we had further 25%reductions .and management changes imposed on us ...........under the guiding principles of IFM this should not happen to a sector that is fishing within its allocation

.if we cant get it right there , how can we have faith in the DOF managing this effectivly for demersals ?

 

demersal gill net ...............dare i mention it .............??  it was a big source of concern at the meetings ...........lindsay jolle stated the effort that was removed from the metro ,and  was not able to be shifted to another area ........WRONG ........those commercial fishers who where paid compensation to stop fishing in this zone , have moved into other areas and increased their catch , .......we know groper and queen snapper catch rates have increased since 2007 .....how can their top man have this so wrong ??

there are many other points .but these are the ones that need serious consideration ..

 

hezzy