Afant News

AFANT Email InDepth #4 - 16 February 2009

AFANT Email InDepth #4
16 February 2009

AFANT 2009 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING TO HELP VICTORIAN BUSHFIRE APPEAL
We will be using the 2009 AFANT AGM to help raise money for the Red Cross Victorian Bushfire Appeal. We’ll have our usual raffle with plenty of great prizes. We’ll also take up a collection. All the money from both will go to the Appeal. Also, the AFANT Committee traditionally has a dinner the night before the AGM. This year we’ve put the dinner aside and the money we would have spent is being added to the collection.

Please make sure you are at the AGM and bring some cash so we can help the people affected by the fires in Victoria. The 2009 AGM will commence at 10:00 am on Sunday 1st March at the Aviation Institute, Charles Eaton Drive, Marrara.

AFANT SUBMISSION TO THE NT GOVERNMENT ON THE FUTURE OF THE DALY RIVER
There has been considerable discussion and comment on our submission on the Daly and some criticism as well. Some have been very critical that we provided the submission to Government before making it public. We have to accept that criticism although, under the circumstances, we believe we did the right thing by letting the Minister have time to consider it before we put it out. Would we do it that way again? Probably not in light of some of the comments we’ve had… but hindsight is a wonderful thing.
On the substance of the submission and the actual recommendations, there are a number of people who support it in full and many more who support particular elements of it. Interestingly, no one seems to want to just leave the situation on the Daly as it is.

There is very strong support for moving the commercial barramundi closure outside the Daly River to a line covering the whole of Anson Bay and Channel Point. Unless I’ve missed it somehow I don’t thing we have had one comment opposed to this.

Similarly, there is strong support for a reduction in the possession limit to two fish although I must acknowledge that we have had a few comments from people strongly opposed to this reduction.

Opinions seem to be a bit more divided on the issue of prohibiting the use of live bait below the Daly River Crossing and there seem to be very strong feelings on both side of this argument. There does however seem to be general agreement that something should be done to place restrictions on cherabin fishing in the river and the size of pots used to fish for them.

Opening up access to new fishing areas also has strong support although opinions are again divided on the issue of limiting engine and boat sizes in some parts of the river. We realized when we were putting the submission together that this would need further consideration and consultation and we will do that.

Finally, there seems to be general and strong support for our proposal to removes the current seasonal closure on recreational barramundi fishing in the Daly River below the entrance to Moon Billabong.

If you haven’t already done so, please drop us an email or give us a call so we know what you think. We are obviously dealing with an area that people are passionate about and, given the strong support for change, we need as much support as possible to get those changes we can agree on in place.

AFANT Email InDepth #3 - 6 February 2009

Hi everyone

2009 has started as a very busy year with plenty going on for AFANT. I’ve covered a few important matters below.
Don’t forget, if there are any issues you particularly want information on, give me a call on 8945 6455 and I’ll try to include it in these Email InDepths.

Regards
Chris Makepeace
Executive Officer

AFANT Email InDepth #3
6 February 2009

AFANT SUBMISSION TO THE NT GOVERNMENT ON THE FUTURE OF THE DALY RIVER
Concerns about the future of recreational barramundi fishing on the Daly River continue to increase and AFANT has been making representations to the NT Government on the issue. We had been discussing a range of Daly matters with former Fisheries Minister Chris Natt but nothing had been finalised at the time of the NT elections last year. In October we met with Fisheries Minister Kon Vatskalis and raised the same issues with him. He requested that we prepare a detailed submission for him to consider actions that should be taken to secure the future of the fishery. We provided a wide ranging submission early in December and, as a courtesy to the Minister and to allow time for him to give us a preliminary response, we agreed we would not make it public until this month.

While a number of our suggestions in the submission cover new ground, some of the matters raised have been under discussion with Government for a long time and we had hoped that we might get an early positive response from the Minister on some of these before we released the submission to members and the wider fishing public. Unfortunately, that has not been the case and the Minister has indicated that the matters should be “…subject to widespread community awareness and discussion.” While we support the principle of open consultation for issues that have not been canvassed before, we are very concerned that the process proposed by the Minister will mean significant delays before any action is taken on matters such as excessive cherabin potting, live baiting and seasonal recreational closures that have been widely canvassed in the past. Remember that the widely-supported changes to possession limits on jewfish, mackerel, cherabin and so on were first put out for “public awareness and discussion” in 2006 and still nothing has been done. We will not willingly let consideration of the future of the Daly drag on in the same way.

The full submission is here for your consideration and comment. If you do nothing else, at least let us know what you think about each of the 11 recommendations we are suggesting. Whether you agree with our suggestions or not, your feedback is essential.

BARRA BUY BACK AND CLOSURE OF BYNOE HARBOUR AND THE FINNISS RIVER
Many people are asking what is happening with the buy back and closures. The following is a sneak preview from AFANT President Warren de With’s report for the AGM in March:
“The NT Government has increased funding in 2008/09 to meet its commitment to buy back the three commercial barramundi fishing licenses promised in 2005. In addition, $1.8 million will be provided over the next three years to buy a further three licences. This means there will be a total of six commercial licenses to be bought out in this term of Government.

On 10 December the Fisheries Minister announced that the Territory Government would close Bynoe Harbour and the Finniss River to commercial barra netting when it bought back the first three of these licences. Given that the Minister announced these closures in December you may have presumed that they would be in place before the start of the commercial barra season on 1 February but this wasn’t the case. All it has done is signal the Government’s intention to the commercial barra netters. If I was a commercial barra netter and learnt that I was going to be excluded from these areas in the near future, maybe I would hammer it as hard as I could while I still could.

AFANT has indicated to the Minister that the closure line for commercial barramundi fishing in this area should extend from Charles Point to Point Blaze and run seaward of the islands south of the mouth of Bynoe. Government must put the closure lines in to get the full benefits of shifting the resource to the recreational sector. Otherwise there will be continuing problems with the two sectors competing for the same stocks and no real gains for the large investment of taxpayer money made by the NT Government.

We have also reminded Minister Vatskalis that his predecessor had agreed to look towards the closure of these waters to the Coastal Net Fishery as a result of the buy back of nine licences in that fishery in 2007. It would be crazy to close them to commercial barra netting but still allow other gill netting to continue.”

Hopefully we will get some positive news from the Minister on this issue at the AGM because, at this stage, it is not looking as though the closures will be put in place anytime soon.

PROPOSED SETTLEMENT OF THE KENBI LAND CLAIM
I received a briefing from Government this week with details of the proposed settlement terms for the Kenbi Land Claim which covers Cox Peninsula and coastal waters in Darwin Harbour and around into Bynoe Harbour. I have to congratulate and thank the Northern Land Council, traditional owners and NT Government for the approach they have taken to ensure that the settlement does not unduly impact on recreational fishing. I don’t have details and maps to give you at this stage but I can say that there is no intention to close any waters to recreational fishing (or to require any permits for recreational fishing access — coastal land or water) with the exception of a small part of Ida Bay which is rarely fished and dries on low tides. There is also very little restriction on coastal land access. We are being asked to be respectful of a number of sacred sites and, in the case of Bare Sand Island, not to move beyond the beach area and not to light fires there. I think this is a small consideration in return for continued access.

The claim settlement will now be put to the Commonwealth Government for final approval. I will provide you with detailed information and maps when the Commonwealth has signed off on the proposal.

AFANT 2009 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
The 2009 AGM will commence at 10:00 AM on Sunday 1st March at the Aviation Institute, Charles Eaton Drive, Marrara. Be there!