Urgent Help Needed!!! Spearo ban proposed!

[Fish_Nailer]

Our local Newspaper (Bega) has a woman wanting to close the local waters to spearo's. She is holding a meeting on sunday 9th (this sunday). If you can get along to the meeting please do so and help us fight this stupid fight!

I have posted this on a few different forums, If you are not from Australia please reply with some info about the sustainablility of spearfishing (I have nothing!). And anything else that you think will help our cause. Tarthra and Merimbula / Eden are very popular spearfishing spots for us Aussies and at the end of the day it effects us all! Cheers!

Meeting Location = Tartra Hall
Meeting Date / Time = Sunday 9th @ 2pm

Please let me quote the entire article (unedited) from the Bega District News. URL here: http://bega.yourguide.com.au/detail...gory=general news&story_id=429557&y=2005&m=10

Aquatic Reserve proposed for Tathra
Friday, 7 October 2005

THE South-East Marine Protection Group is proposing Aquatic Reserves at Merimbula and Tathra.

"This would be two small steps in the right direction towards protection of vulnerable species and to give people greater enjoyment and understanding of sea creatures and their habitats, without destroying them," a group spokesperson, Ms Debby Nerrie, said.

"We have personally seen a marked decline in species such as wobbegong sharks and blue groper wrasse at these popular spots, mostly from spearfishing.

"These species are easy targets because they mostly sleep during the day," she said.

"We are proposing a reserve extending only 200 metres to seaward at both Tathra and Merimbula.

"The main restrictions will be on spearfishing and collecting.



"Angling will not be affected except in a smaller snorkelling area, although we would like to see a ban on all fishing for sharks and rays over each area."

Ms Nerrie said there would be many benefits in having Aquatic Reserves which serve to protect representative species and habitats, similar to National Parks on land.

"Because of their proximity to two important urban centres with high tourism numbers, these reserves will achieve two important results for the local community," she said.

"They will alleviate the depletion of living creatures that is seen adjacent to other towns and cities; and they will develop into significant attractions.

"Even now, many thousands of visitors annually come from far afield because they know they can see a wide range of sea creatures at these two locations.

"There is good access and the facilities of the towns provide for other needs.

"Nature reserves and the broader natural setting of the land adjoining the towns would be well complemented by the sea equivalent.

"There is also a great educational opportunity to be developed here, for primary and secondary schools, both in and outside the region.

"As the results of protection build and species recover to normal levels, the attraction will become greater.

"The underwater geology of the areas results in a rich habitat full of protective caves, cracks and crevices.

"These are used by man species, but unfortunately this is not enough to save them from spears.

"The Tathra proposal incorporates an unusually rich underwater 'garden' of sponges, that is a delight for snorkellers; while a distinctive, and little-known, feature of the Merimbula proposed area is the range of sharks that breed there, eg Port Jackson, rusty cat and draughtboard sharks.

"These are all docile and harmless residents," Ms Nerrie said.

Public meetings at Tathra and Merimbula will be held to launch the Aquatic Reserve proposals.

The Tathra meeting will be held in the Tathra Hall on Sunday, October 9, at 2pm, and the Merimbula meeting will be held on November 24.

All interested people are invited to attend, to take part in discussion and to express their support.

Any help would be great! If you can't make it to the meeting maybe send a letter of support or something (I don't know).

Thanks for helping out.

UPDATE: Please send any letters of support or general information that will help out to my email address: fish_nailer@bluebottle.com Thank you!

 

[Huan]

If you contact Dr Adam Smith he has very good information regarding Spearfishing and sustainablility.
try contacting Adrenaline spearfishing they may be able to help.

 

[octopus]

We have personally seen a marked decline in species such as wobbegong sharks and blue groper wrasse at these popular spots, mostly from spearfishing.

It is very specific statement. Do you think it might be correct?

Would ban be only for certain species in local waters?

 

[Mr. X]

Rather sneaky that they are not planning to ban rod fishermen ... yet. They reckon fishing is the most popular participant sport here in the UK -- despite being crueller than fox-hunting (although much less cruel than battery farming) it will never be banned because so many people of all classes do it. I expect it is similar where you are. As they are openly talking about banning rod fishing too -- perhaps you should alert & try to engage fishermen of all types to join you on this. As the NRA in America have found, giving any ground is a loosing strategy.

That said, does the proposal make sense? Most spearos are concerned about the environment (I know I am & have seen that others on these forums are). Perhaps there are alternatives e.g. ban the taking of the 2 species mentioned -- Wrasse are poor sport & not great eating anyway and spearos don't generally spear sharks. Are people down there really spearing sharks (worth checking)? This may not completely satisfy them -- but it sounds like you are not at all satisfied either, so why should they be? Perhaps they could also allocate a large dedicated spearing area - say 200-1000m off shore & shorline 1km either side? (Hey, if they get what they want then you should get something too to make up for what they have taken from you, so to speak).

200m is not a huge distance -- is there any good fishing beyond the 200m mark? How are they planning to police this? If you take some bass say 300m out and walk up the beach with them, how will they know where you took them? (My bet is they'll ticket you and it will be up to you to prove you innocence -- which will of course be impossible). So perhaps they will need to assign an approved spearo channel out to the deeper water, so that spearo can enter and exit without being accosted?

Speak up. Attend the meeting & speak up (if possible get a good speaker to represent you). Write to the local papers before hand. Raise your profile. Be sensitive to the environment; spearos are not trawlers -- spearing is very low impact. Be polite but firm -- you have rights too :ko . What sort of country do you want?

 

[Fish_Nailer]

Thanks guys for your replies and your interest

Sorry for the late reply, been busy!

Ahhh the meeting, where do I start? I wish I had brought a video camera or tape recorder and made it available to you all on the Internet.

Anyway it was a huge success! There was about 60 Spearo's, Lineo's & Commercial guys ALL FOR ONE AND ONE FOR ALL! Against 8 to 10 GREENIES!!!
It was nice that none of us blamed the other, the lineo's and spearo's were in one accord, very nice
Anyway the meeting was the stupidest thing I have ever seen in my life. For a start the person who wrote the article wasn't even present, the main speaker (chairman) declared that he was not the person to answer questions and the only other person that could answer questions would not reply!
No facts no figures NO NOTHING, just a proposal of ideas from a bunch of greenies.
Oh you should have been there! There is no way (in the near future anyway) that they will get this thing through. They want to close off the Tarthra and Merimbula Wharf (plus about 500m to 1K on each side) to spearo's and also make a small area that even lineo's can't use (Tarthra).

Before I got to the meeting I said told myself to be calm and act like 'one of them' be a spy and find out what is going on.
But it was not like that at all, everyone was ANGRY at these greenies and everyone had something to say, so I got right in there with them ;D

It was such a funny / angering meeting, the chairman dude started things off by saying that no one should voice their opinions until 'question time' after the FIRST presentation. (Personally I think the dude looked around the room and saw all the beefy fisho's and thought *oh crap hope they don't all rush at us*).
After that dude said his piece he handed it over to the lady greeny who began showing slides of fish, coral, seahorses etc. (one guy yells out *we're not gonna spear coral lady* , everyone else yells *here here*).
Anyway then she starts on about how if she invited you to have a bbq at her house and was serving up redbelly black snake, wombat etc that you would not like to come, but if she was having prawns, fish etc you would come. And then she went on about how we should focus on the water as much as the land etc.

Her little speech lasted a few short minutes with much yelling out from the crowd of rugged spearo's & lineo's at her stupid comments and utterly ridiculous statements. She did not present any facts at all, only her assumptions about dwindling fish populations on what she had observed in her '600 dives' (I think she said 600) at Tarthra in the past 6 years.


OK QUESTION TIME Mr chairman opens up question time for the first presentation.

This is what I observed from 'question time' They would not answer ANY of the questions, other than to say *few good points there* & *thanks for your opinion* etc.
They were sneaky and misleading and very sly in the way they went about everything. They had their whole team ( approx 8 ) scattered throughout the crowd (most arrived or should I say appeared after everyone had sat down and strategically placed themselves) and after a couple of questions the chairman would choose one of his own (hand raised) greenies to balance things out for them. Even though at any one time there was 5 to 10 hands raised in the crowd.

Honestly you should have been there it was SOOOO sinister!!!

 

[Fish_Nailer]

The first person to answer questions (or one of the first) was a lady from the Pambula fishing club declaring that this meeting is not even legal and that they should not have called a public meeting because they had not contacted any of the fishing clubs or associations. Furthermore she handed the chairman a letter from the president (I think it was the president) of the Pambula fishing club and asked him to read it out to everyone, which he agreed. The letter was a long one about the impact that such an idea would have on the tourist dollars (millions) in the areas and the businesses that would suffer etc.

the next question was from a guy next to me and he asked *lady where do you live?*.......(No reply.) *You said you have dived here for 6 years but where do you live?*, (lady relies): *that is not relevant to this discussion*. I yelled out: *yes it is, answer his question*. She didn't answer! Obviously not from the area (mmmm, me smells national greeny agenda here).

There were many more questions but no answers, everyone in the crowd was just shaking their heads at these people.
One person asked: *what organization are you? , what associations are you affiliated with?* The chairman paused for a second and then said: *thanks for your input* and then points to the next person to ask a question! So the original guy speaks up *hey you haven't answered my question*, to which the chairman answered *I am not the one who can answer the questions*. I think it was at that point I yelled out *Is there anyone here that can answer our questions?* Greeny lady was a bit red in the face and chairman just looked at me? Then I think they chose a question from one of their own pack.

My mate asked *Have you seen anyone spear a blue Grouper?* The greeny lady couldn't answer his question, other than something about the person who had seen it happen was not present.

One of the greeny ladies (in the crowd) put forward her opinion that she saw a teenage boy who didn't know how to use his new speargun and that it was dangerous for people in the water (THAT WAS HER ARGUMENT!)

Many people (spearo's) were saying about reporting law breakers, & I made the comment that you don't close the road if someone is speeding. But all these comments fell on deaf ears because we were not fitting in with their agenda.

After about 20 to 30 minutes of them getting NAILED from all of us the greeny chairman speaker dude said *that concludes the meeting for today* (remember this was question time for the FIRST presentation). As people were starting to leave (shaking their heads) one guy stood up (I think the Tarthra fishing club dude) and asked that everyone vote by show of hands that there should be a motion moved to say that the people disagree with the meeting. The chairman agreed to this (maybe thought we would use him as burley if he didn't). And the 60 or so fisho's voted against the 10 or so greenies.


In conclusion I could have gone on and on about what happened but yeah I just don't have time to write anymore. At the end of the day these people were deceptive about what there agenda is and would not answer any questions during 'question time' about anything. To be honest they scare me, I don't think these people will stop. They live, eat and breath this stuff and are very passionate from what I can see. I think we need to be very diligent and cut them off wherever the raise their ugly head. According to the article there will be a meeting held on November 24 at Merimbula. We need to get there if possible. The main focus I think should be how this type of thing DOES NOT WORK. We should be focusing more on enforcing and tightening current regulations not imposing bans. It is obvious why they are focusing on spearfishing, because we are a minority group and the resistance is less. It is good that we have the lineo's on our side and it should not come to us blaming the lineo's or commercial guys but we should all stick together because it affects all (spearo's today, lineo's tomorrow).

Lastly I do not know everyone in my area (very few actually) please if you can't make it to November 24 (location unknown at this point) by all means alert the people down here that you know of so that they can come along. Be assured after Sundays performance of testing the waters the greenies will have much more than 10 people to voice their 'opinion' and who knows they may even have some 'facts'.or a political figure present. So yeah lets not get complacent about the victory battle and lets arm ourselves for the war ahead.

 

[Mr. X]

Congratulations & well done -- so far!

Sounds like the battle is won but the war is not over. It is well to respect the environment though, most greens are decent people rightly concerned about our environment. As fishermen, it is in our own interest that the fish stocks, & the environment they need, thrive. Shooters & hunters in the UK preserve woodland, withy beds, wetlands, flight ponds and hedgerows specifically for game cover & wildfowl -- they have the biggest vested interest in preserving it; something not obviously apparent to outsiders.

Unfortunately extremists (often political, occasionally anarchistic and sometimes clearly psychotic) seem to have infiltrated some green organisations. Over here in the UK there are several groups of environmental terrorists. They vandalise cars, blackmail people associated or doing business with companies they disapprove of (including builders, suppliers, investors, etc.), free research animals (including voracious predators like mink, which have devastated indiginous species of pretty much every living animal of its own size or smaller :naughty -- and then they banned hunting with dogs here, so the mink cannot be controlled!), fire bomb labs & shops, throw blood, etc.. Within the last 2 weeks they arrested 3 or 4 men who dug up an old womans body and stole it for several months :yack , because her family bred guinea pigs for cancer research; they are sick people. Nobody wants animals to suffer unnecessarily -- but these folk are dangerous. You may have heard that fox hunting with dogs was banned in the UK recently -- despite 56% of the population disagreeing with the ban; the extremists have become a canny, vocal and influential minority in political circles -- they are undermining democracy while using it to their advantage.