**DONT LOCK US OUT**

[Tacklebags 404]

Here's an initiative worth fighting for...Watch Rex Hunts video at the bottom, if that doesn't get you motivated nothing will!http://www.fishingworld.com.au/news/don-t-lock-us-out-campaign-launched

A full-page ad will feature in this Saturday's edition of The Australian newspaper. The "Don't Lock Us Out" ad will coincide with the official launch of new national lobby organisation called Keep Australia Fishing (KAF).

TB

[urhookedfish 12]

YES, YES & MORE YES.This is exactly whats needed.Love it.Good on Rex Hunt for spearheading this campaign. Lets plug this in everyway shape possible and keep it going and going and going!Our kids and future generations depend on our actions Now!

[RJ5023 230]

I posted this on FSA, but maybe it'd be a bit of help here as well?Problem is that the MPA process has been going for so long and with so many twists and turns along the way that anyone who wants to understand what's been (and is) happening hasn't got a hope of catching up. If they can't catch up they're less likely to get involved, and we need all the help we can muster.Cheers,RJIt’s probably about time it was done without the spin applied to these things by DENR and the conservationists. This has been my experience, others might see it differently. I've skipped over a whole bunch of associated issues in order to get the basic story told.Make a cuppa, this is going to take a while.The Australian Government agreed to implement Marine Protected Areas (MPA’s) at an international conference in the 1990’s. Who knows why – I sure don’t.The responsibility for implementing the State MPA’s was farmed out to each State Govt along with a wad of cash, and the Federal Govt started working on MPA’s for areas outside of State waters all around Australia. These are essentially in waters more than 3 nm from the coast out to the Australian EEZ boundaries (about 200 km) think Coral Sea, Great Barrier Reef etcWe need to follow the State MPA path from here, and get back to the Commonwealth MPA’s a bit later on.The first trial of a State MPA in SA was the Encounter Marine Park (southern Fleurieu and KI) in 2001. It had every kind of zoning and was fiercely debated. In the end it was a debacle, with key stakeholders unable to agree on just about anything mainly because the conservationists pushed hard for all kind of restrictions. There were a whole bunch of MPA acronyms introduced about this time:-• CAR principle - Comprehensive, Adequate, Representative• Precautionary Principle (leave you to look that one up for yourself )• SARSMPA – South Australian Representative System of MPA’s• Marxan - computer software to determine the optimal location for MPA’s based on a range of input criteria and data.• Bunch of others I’ve forgotten.After this all was very quiet (if you were a rec fisher) and we’re told that a huge amount of research was completed by DENR (then called DEH) and other departments to figure out where Marine Parks should be placed, how many and how big.In 2006 a new Act was presented and debated in Parliament. This was the Marine Parks Act which was passed in 2007 and paved the way for the declaration of 19 Marine Parks around our coastline. This Act also introduced the Marine Parks Council as an intermediary between DENR and the Minister to ensure that all MPA recommendations to the Minister were subjected to examination by people outside of the Govt. (key stakeholders) The MPC is totally biased toward conservationists.Bit more of a quiet period, and then in late 2009 DENR announced the 19 Marine Park locations. This is when things really started to get interesting, but nearly all rec fishers in SA were asleep at the wheel. At this time DENR decided to get involved via the forums, and you’ll be able to easily find that hereabouts, but be warned there’s a lot of reading to do.There was a very large marketing campaign undertaken by DENR in the papers etc to tell us all why we really needed these huge Marine Parks and why we should all love and care for them. You might remember this (one of my all-time favourite DENR posters):- What DENR told us during this campaign was:-• This is not all about fishing (refer to their campaign poster above )• These Marine Parks will have no effect on any current fishing activities • There will be small areas of each park where fishing will be banned.Based on these promises rec fishers in SA remained comatose – what was there to worry about? As a result the Marine Park Boundary public consultation went by with barely a blip on rec fishers Furunos. Part of that consultation included asking everyone where they most liked to fish via a DENR application called SAMPIT. About 1500 fishers (pro and rec) responded and DENR were very pleased. Around this time DENR also created Local Advisory Groups (LAG’s) for each of the Marine Parks. These were composed of people who were local to the area, and who could provide local knowledge and involve their communities in the zoning process. The operation of the LAG’s is a whole story to itself, and you should look at the Select Enquiry submissions to get a bit of an idea about what went on. Some of it wasn’t very pretty, some was downright outrageous.But back to the main story - Soon after that we found out exactly what there was to worry about. Those “small areas where fishing will be banned” morphed into 144 conceptual no-take-zones that were located in all kind of places that we’ve been fishing for probably 60 years or more and overlapped the SAMPIT places that we told DENR about at their request.At the same time the conservationists were in their element and were demanding that 30% of all Marine Parks become no-take-zones (ntz) where all fishing would be banned forever. Considering that our 19 MP’s cover 27.600 square kilometres this would have been a truly enormous area. At that time conservationists were high as kites, and plastered cutesy MPA posters on taxis and billboards around Adelaide. Rec fishers in SA were in deep doo doo. The ntz maps were published by DENR in November 2010 (if you knew where to look) and resulted in an uproar which culminated at a meeting at Burnside Town hall where about 1200 fishers attended. The hall was packed – many couldn’t even get in, but the noise was very clear even from the car park and the media and a few pollies had some fun. None of this seemed to make much difference to DENR or the Minister – who declined the opportunity to attend.The ntz announcement did cause some major developments though :-• Action groups were spontaneously formed across the State to fight against the ntz in each of their local areas.• A Parliamentary Select Committee Inquiry was started and submissions came from all over the State – including from some LAG chairmen and members.• DENR were persuaded to hold zoning ‘information sessions’ in Adelaide. Considering that all the LAG’s were in country areas this was the only opportunity for Adelaide based rec fishers to have a say in the zoning process, and it didn’t work very well.What did work very well were the Action Groups. They fought hard and made some very professional and well researched submissions about zoning in their areas. Talk back radio and letters to the Editor were rife with complaints, and the forums/Facebook went ballistic.And so it went for a quite a few months with DENR maintaining that nothing would change, and that the management plans (zones and all the rest) would be published for public consultation at the end of 2011 and we should all just shut up until then. Didn’t happen. The noise just kept on, and DENR/Govt were also in serious trouble with their compensation/displacement package for the pro’s.Then Mike Rann and Kevin Foley got the boot. This provided a political opportunity for the Govt to shuffle the deck chairs and climb out of the hole they were in. The MPA process was halted.A new era of glasnost was declared by Jay Weatherill and we all waited to see what would happen next. What happened was that DENR has now released a new version of the ntz maps, but this one is based almost entirely on what the Action Groups and LAG’s have recommended for their areas. the number of ntz has been almost halved, and these are much smaller than the previous ntz's. There are still a lot of issues to be uncovered and resolved about MPA’s (beach fishing, enforcement, funding, rules etc etc) but we have to wait (again) until later this year to find out any details. When they are released for ‘review’ (which really must be ‘consultation’) we might find a lot of things that we want to have changed, but for the moment the Marine Parks themselves and the No-take-zones that have recently been published seem to hold no real threats for rec fishers (with the obvious exception of beach fishing).The conclusion I draw from all this is that we need to continue to be very vigilant about what DENR and the conservationists might try to pull next. They have given us very litle reason to trust them in the past. The pollies should by now be completely aware of the likely outcome if they try to screw us over again, and the outcome of the Select Inquiry has yet to be published and that's likely to present a very large mallet to the Opposition to use as they see fit.So all in all it’s not a bad result for rec fishers right now IMO, but it’s come about through the hard work of a minority of rec fishers in SA and we all need to get off our collective butts and provide them with our support when things get a bit sticky again in the future.And I’m pretty sure that things will get a bit sticky again. Rec fishers in Adelaide should consider ourselves lucky with the outcome so far, but we can’t expect to be able to sit back and watch in the future. Wind back the clock to mid-2010 and see just how close you came to losing and don’t let it happen again. Get involved, have your say. You are all needed, don't expect to be carried.Regards,RJ

[archerfish 685]

Here's a link to the "Keep Australia Fishing" website:http://www.keepaustraliafishing.com.au/site/Cheersaf

[trihull 177]

:c :c Filled in the petition, opened up my email , and :c me, had 10 emails from politicians... :c All were auto responses, so just wondering do they even pay attention to them....

[Tacklebags 404]

I had the same thing TH.It will be seen by their advisors at the very least.Not my cup of tea having to lobby pollies but I don't see much choice at present. TWS are already on the SAplan site spruiking they want more of innes national park etc zoned off in the future.This Federal plan is becoming a massive issue as well.CheersTB

[snapper15.4kg 67]

I have 3 emails that are only from the alp ministers, combet shorten and crean.This makes me ask, if the Liberal Party are getting any notification of the petion

[maximus1120 0]

Thanks for the info RJ!, was really well writen and informative! im on to the story now so will keep up to date with it!! cheers

[RJ5023 230]

If you're feeling frustrated by the lack of action in SA, there's something that everyone can do to make a difference. By all means everyone should get into the petitions that have been kicked off interstate, that's all good.A group of Adelaide people want to make a difference locally, and they've been really getting stuck into all the local rec fishing issues for more than 4 months now.They could use your help, and it won't cost you a cent.The Metropolitan Fishers Alliance are doing some excellent work, and you're all very welcome to join in.

MFA Meeting 4 Wednesday 4th July 2012 7:30 pm CWA 30 Dequetteville Tce Kent Town (upstairs meeting room)

More info here:-http://www.strikehook.com/forum/100-metropolitan-fishers-allianceCheers,RJ