A ban on super trawlers in Australia’s southern waters will end on Tuesday, more than two years after a Tasmanian company sought to base the FV Margiris out of Devonport.
The 142-metre trawler, with a cargo capacity of 6,200 tonnes, was blocked from fishing in the Small Pelagic Fishery in 2012.
Australia's former Labor government moved to prevent trawlers with freezer capacities above 2000 tonnes operating in the southern fishery after considerable opposition on social media.
Tasmanian Senator Richard Colbeck said decisions should be based on science, and a report is expected to be made public within a fortnight.
“We will make any decisions regarding access to the small pelagic fishery based on sound science,” Senator Colbeck said.
There have been no new applications for another large trawler in the Small Pelagic Fishery.
Tasmania’s peak body for recreational fishers, TARFish, agreed with the need for a science-based approach, however chief executive Mark Nikolai said the science around three areas of concern for their group had not been conducted.
“Our concerns still haven’t been addressed,” Mr Nikolai said.
Those areas of concern are: where the fish in the Small Pelagic Fishery move, how quickly populations regenerate and details about the jack mackerel population off Tasmania’s east coast.
The 2012 declaration said trawlers more than 130 metres in length, with more than 2000 tonnes of storage capacity, could not trawl midwaters in the Small Pelagic Fishery.
Another ban, effective until May 2015, meant trawlers with cargo capacity of 1600 tonnes or more could not receive stock from other trawlers.
Map of the Small Pelagic Fishery
Total allowable catches for target species in the fishery were set at 7.5 per cent of total spawning stock size for 2014-2015.
Stop The Trawler spokesperson Rebecca Hubbard agreed with Mr Nikolai’s assertion regarding a lack of scientific information.
“The data that they’re using to estimate the original size of the fish population is old and is only one-off data,” Ms Hubbard said.
Seafish Tasmania Pelagic, which brought the FV Margiris to Australia in 2012, was rebuffed this year after its attempt to have the super trawler ban lifted failed in the Federal Court.
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