Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I left off my speech on Tuesday quoting the Humane Society International’s submission to list the southern bluefin tuna as conservation dependent. In their application, they noted:

In 2003 it was found that an entire generation appeared to be missing from SBT stocks off Western Australia, that acoustic surveys of one- and two-year-old SBT found that between 1997 and 2000 the aged one cohort declined by over 200 per cent and since then it has been close to zero. Results from 2003 found zero southern bluefin tuna aged one. The survey did not operate in 2004, but in 2005 and 2006 the results were also close to zero. The near total absence of southern bluefin tuna in the survey area for six consecutive surveys, following four years of consistent detections, is of concern.

As the chamber might recall me saying, that is also the first action that I think the minister could be taking to start addressing the issue of decline in southern bluefin tuna stock. The second option that the minister could take would be to revoke the wildlife trade operation status of the fishery under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. There is no case to be made for this as a sustainable fishery and its recognition as such under the EPBC Act is now quite perverse.

Thirdly, the minister can nominate the listing of the species at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, commonly known as CITES. This convention is now the last resort for this species which has been so badly let down by the regional fisheries management organisations which have failed to protect it for the last 13 years. And, yes, senators will probably recall that I have mentioned some of these issues in the past when talking about the need to protect southern bluefin tuna. It is unfortunate that I have to keep repeating these statements and the fact that the quota has been set so high for southern bluefin tuna that it seriously endangers it. These actions both at home and in international fora to protect these species must reflect the much broader approach that we need to take to marine sustainability. The government has to acknowledge that the current approach has failed and that extinction of this species is now a very real possibility.

Southern bluefin tuna is unfortunately not the only species threatened in this manner but it is an indication of the crisis facing some of our fisheries worldwide. The Bureau of Rural Sciences confirmed that the number of Australian marine species considered overfished has increased from 17 to 24 and that the most severely overfished species still have no prospect of recovery. To safeguard the marine environment we must move to the kind of ecosystem and precautionary approach to fisheries management which is detailed in articles 5 and 6 of the United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement. We have to move to a science based approach where regional fisheries management organisations are made more transparent and less prone to vested interests and the short-term demands of the market. We should immediately establish well-enforced large-scale no-take marine protected areas. We need independent observer schemes, real-time vessel monitoring and fish tagging. All of these must play a role in how we manage our fish stocks.

We believe that the government must take urgent action to start managing these fisheries better. They need to reduce the quota. These fisheries have an intrinsic value; they are not there just for fishing and they should not be mined as a commodity like dirt from a quarry. We really need to start managing these fisheries properly. Therefore, I have moved to disallow the quota on southern bluefin tuna. The quota is too high and is not supported by the science. We are in danger of sending a species to extinction.