With a big Green vote expected this month, the fishing industry, oil and gas developers, tourism operators and conservationists are all watching the roll-out of a national network of marine parks.
MINING taxes, asylum seekers, and workplace relations may be the key issues for Western Australian voters at the coming federal election, but marine conservation is also shaping as a pivotal issue for the state economy.
With polling increasingly pointing to the Greens holding the balance of power in the Senate, their influence on the incoming government’s legislative agenda is likely to be significant whichever party wins the election.
One of the Greens’ key policies is to significantly add to Australia’s offshore marine parks.
Under the Greens policy, 30 per cent of all marine ‘bioregions’ would be protected as no-take zones in which commercial activity would be prohibited.
That has particular pertinence for WA, where more than $150 billion in offshore oil and gas projects are planned or under way.
It has also gathered currency following the federal government’s release of new offshore exploration acreage in May, including permits in the Mentelle Basin, 80 kilometres off Margaret River.
The release outraged conservationists, who had wanted the process suspended pending the outcome of the government inquiry into last year’s devastating Montara oil spill in the Timor Sea.
They were also angry that the release occurred before the federal government had completed its assessment of WA’s offshore waters under an ongoing initiative to establish a national network of ‘representative’ marine parks by 2012.
Under this ‘bioregional’ planning program, Australia’s offshore waters have been broken up into five basic marine regions – the south-west, the north-west, north, east, and south-east regions.
Pending consultation with stakeholder groups, the department aims to identify which areas within each region need further assessment for possible protection as marine reserve.
To date, work has only been completed for the south-east region, where 13 marine reserves covering 227,000 square kilometres were created off South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria.
However, WA will be the next cab off the rank with planning well under way for both the south-west and north-west regions.
Plans are most advanced for the giant south-west region, which covers more than 1.3 million sqkm of ocean between Kalbarri and South Australia’s Kangaroo Island, and includes some of WA’s most productive fisheries.
Seven major areas have been identified as needing further assessment for possible protection, including waters around the Abrolhos Islands, around Jurien Bay, the Perth Canyon west of Rottnest, the entire south-west corner (including the Mentelle Basin) and two areas off the south coast in the Recherche Archipelago.
Seven areas have also been identified for further assessment in the north-west region, including a huge area off North West Cape, gas-rich waters north of Karratha and the entire Kimberley coast.
Liberal leader Tony Abbott has attacked both Labor’s handling of the existing assessment process and the Greens’ expansion strategy, as “threatening to lock up our oceans” and has pledged to “immediately suspend” the process pending more consultation with affected communities and industries.
In return, the Greens have accused the coalition of scaremongering, saying it was false to claim the Greens wanted to lock up 30 per cent of all Australian waters.
WA Greens senator Rachel Siewart said the Greens fully supported the national assessment program already under way, and that it should form the basis of what areas should be declared no-take zones.
“We’re saying we need to complete that further investigation to work out which areas should go to marine park, and then work out from there which areas should be no-take areas,” Senator Siewart told WA Business News.
She stressed that only 30 per cent of the areas classified as marine reserves would be protected by no-take zones under the Greens policy.
“We’re definitely not saying we want 30 per cent of the coast put into a no-take area,” Senator Siewart said. “What we are saying is, of a marine protected area, 30 per cent of that should be no-take.”
She added that the definition of no-take zones would also only occur after detailed consultation with all relevant stakeholders, including all affected industries.
Against that backdrop, Senator Siewart said the release of exploration acreage in the Mentelle Basin while the south-west region was still being assessed showed “a lot of bad faith in the process”.
WWF Australia marine conservation manager Gilly Llewellyn also backed the existing assessment program, and said it allowed for a gradation of activities permissible within marine parks, from no-take zones to monitored commercial activity.
However, the oil and gas industry remains highly sceptical of the Greens policy and its potential to influence the assessment process post-election.
Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association policy chief Mark McCallum said the Greens’ assurances about no-takes zones conflicted with their stated policy seeking a “minimum of 30 per cent no-take areas per bioregion by 2012”.
“For us, we’re after certainty ... and this seems to increase uncertainty,” he said.
“We are supporters of the reserve network and of expanding the representative network, but what we are not supportive of is ring-fencing 30 per cent of Australia’s oceans.
“The focus has to be on understanding what the actual values (of a region) are and understanding what the effects of various activities are on those actual values.
“To then arbitrarily say we need 30 per cent of that protected from all activity with little justification doesn’t create the certainty that the industry needs.”
Mr McCallum said the industry had been pivotal in defining the areas now classified as marine reserves for the south-east region. In conjunction with the fishing sector, it was also now working to identify “a network the size of New South Wales” across the south-west, north-west and north bioregions.
The fishing industry is also wary of where the current government is heading with the proposals to create big areas protected from commercial activity, having seen problems with recent similar initiatives on the Great Barrier Reef and off the NSW coast.
WA Fishing Industry Council CEO Anna Cronin said the government needed to be more consultative, giving commercial fishermen more opportunity and time to consider the implications of potentially locking away resources – especially from an industry that has proven it is responsible and sustainable.
While the numbers of full-time equivalent workers linked directly to the fishing industry and the value of the sector on a regional basis (see table) may appear small in the context of urban Perth or the massive wealth of the Pilbara, the presence of the seafood industry in a small and isolated coastal community can be significant.
Several coastal towns between Perth and Geraldton, for instance, have a significant part of the workforce in primary production, most likely the rock lobster industry. WAFIC figures show, for instance, that Ledge Point led the way with 39 per cent of its working population employed in fishing or agriculture. In Lancelin that was 18 per cent and Green Head 16 per cent.
Ms Cronin also said that the government needed to have a policy to adequately compensate those affected, including the wider community.
“We are pushing ahead for a displacement policy,” she said.
“There will be an impact on commercial fishing, there will be displacement. Some people will lose access to their livelihoods.
“It is not just direct impact on licence holders but also the associated impact on communities.”
National Seafood Industry Alliance, of which WAFIC is a member, recently issued a policy statement for the election demanding, among other things, that a just and generous displacement policy is drawn up.
The displacement issue, though, is not just about employment.
Fishing operators argue that the community impact goes beyond employment in local fishing and processing operations or the multiplier effect of purchasing supplies such as fuel. They also create regular demand for services, which could not otherwise exist for other users.
In remote coastal towns this includes the tourism sector, an industry that seems to be perpetually on its knees.
Restricting commercial fishing could, fishermen argue, reduce supply and raise prices to such an extent that the hospitality industry may even struggle to provide locally caught seafood, even in the locations where it has been traditionally caught.
Tourism Council WA chief executive Graham Moss said he had not yet delved deeply into the issue but the industry would want to see a balance struck between commercial interests and those of conservation, given the marine environment was very often a tourist drawcard in coastal WA.
Mr Moss said the industry would be most concerned about anything that impinged on recreational fishing, including the charter fishing industry, which was an important attraction in many regional areas such as Exmouth and the Abrolhos.
In terms of commercial fishing, Mr Moss was more cautious but applied the same logic.
“There needs to be the opportunity to eat local fish in the particular area,” he said.
“Again, there needs to be a balance between catching fish for consumption and preserving fish for the future.”
Australian Hotels Association WA executive director Bradley Woods said the issue had yet to come across his industry’s radar screen but noted that, with 25-30 per cent of menu items being seafood, anything that restricted access or raised prices would be worrying.
Mr Woods also said a balanced approach was necessary to ensure all needs were met, including local consumers who sometimes lost out to export markets.
He said that he not heard of any concerns about access to product from hospitality providers in the state’s South West after the state government’s recent decision to stop commercial beach seine fishing – big nets cast from the shore – for most species.
Access to local fisheries has become an election issue on the east coast, especially in NSW where big communities such as Coffs Harbour have experienced problems due to state government restrictions on fishing.
However WAFIC executive director Guy Leyland said the issue was unlikely to gain prominence in the federal election in WA because the sparse coastal populations tended to be part of bigger rural electorates.
“There are no marginal seats that will be impacted by this initiative,” he said.
“They don’t encompass coastal electorates.”
Mr Leyland said the state’s southern waters were next to be assessed by the federal government and that the industry was watching with concern the green agenda for this region, with a well-funded campaign that claimed fishing operations had decimated fish stocks.
“They are like a cargo cult, they have a one-track mind,” he said.
“We are not anti marine parks, it is just about having proper science and objectives behind it rather than just a political agenda.”
Shark Bay Prawn Trawler Operators’ Association executive officer Graeme Stewart is one who believes that urban consumers don’t understand the link between restricting fishing and their ability buy fresh fish.
“They can’t get that through their brain,” Mr Stewart said.
He believes that marine parks based on science are appropriate because they can protect breeding grounds but too many restrictions may impact on a viable food source, one that doesn’t rely on fresh water like the rest of Australia’s primary production.
“We should think long and hard about closing off areas to production of fish,” he said.
“That is not exactly the clever country.”