Zones to ban fishing
Big stretches of South West coastal waters will become off-limits to commercial and recreational anglers under long-awaited marine park plans to be unveiled by the State Government today.
The Cape to Cape marine park - from Geographe Bay north of Busselton to Flinders Bay east of Augusta - will be revealed in Yallingup this morning more than six years after it was first promised.
Covering State waters to the 3km mark offshore, the new park comes ahead of imminent final plans by the Federal Government for a network of marine conservation areas around Australia's south-west.
Last May, Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke outlined a proposal for a string of marine parks in Commonwealth waters between Kangaroo Island in South Australia and the Abrolhos Islands off Geraldton.
The plan which will be announced by Premier Colin Barnett and Environment Minister Bill Marmion is understood to contain at least eight major no-take, or "sanctuary", zones in which all forms of fishing and oil and gas drilling are banned. These will include two declared no-take zones in Geographe Bay and two either side of Margaret River, as well as sizeable areas around Cape Naturaliste in the north and Cape Leeuwin in the south.
Eagle Bay, one of the State's most exclusive areas, and Flinders Bay will also have no-take zones.
The park is also understood to include several smaller sanctuaries, although some of them will permit recreational fishing from the shore.
The decision to unveil the plan comes after Fisheries Minister Norman Moore agreed to support it and other marine parks in exchange for $14.5 million to help commercial fishermen gain sustainability accreditation.
Conservation Council of WA marine co-ordinator Tim Nicol welcomed the news as long overdue, saying the South West was a special area that deserved protecting.
But the announcement is certain to spark a backlash by WA's powerful recreational fishing lobby, which said the marine park was a "waste of money".
Recfishwest chief executive Andrew Rowland said the South West's fisheries were already well managed and the park was a political stunt.
The WA Fishing Industry Council also put the Government on notice, saying it would push for compensation for any of its members affected by the new marine park.
While shark fishermen and demersal gillnet operators were expected to bear the brunt of the sanctuary zones, some abalone divers are also tipped to be affected.
WAFIC boss Guy Leyland said he had serious doubts about the quality of the research used to justify the sanctuary zones, saying they were arbitrary and capricious.
