Marine Environment Policy Summary

A healthy future for NSW’s oceans and seaways

NSW’s marine environment is at risk from chronic over-fishing, by-catch, excessive shark netting, damaging pollution and the invasions of exotic species. Without urgent action, the quality of the ocean environment will degrade and fish populations are at risk of collapse. The stress on the ocean ecosystems will be made much worse by increased greenhouse gas pollution of the atmosphere and consequent global warming.

With fewer than 500 Grey Nurse Sharks remaining off the east coast of Australia, the population is endangered and in desperate need of protection from fishing and shark netting.

NSW’s coastal fishery is over exploited. Poor management practices have stretched it beyond capacity. It is at risk of collapse unless fish are allowed to breed and increase their populations.

The Greens welcome the creation of Marine Parks as an important mechanism to allow fish stocks to recover. However, the no-take zones are inadequate and need to be expanded. Much of the opposition to the Marine Parks has been founded on rumour and poor information. We call for an open debate, based on the scientific evidence of the benefits of sanctuaries.

The Greens support:

• just consideration of Native Title claims over water, rock, headlands and islands and the involvement of Indigenous Australians in marine resource protection and management;
• a comprehensive, adequate and representative system of Marine Protected Areas, which secures the survival and abundance of ecosystems, habitat types and species by providing at least 30% of each representative ecosystem as no-take sanctuary zones;
• public participation in Marine Parks planning and management;
• identifying and cleaning up sources of marine and estuarine pollution, and management of ballast and bilge water releases to stop the introduction of noxious marine species;
• restricting aquaculture ventures to those that deliver better ecological outcomes than wild fisheries and that use locally native fish;
• laws that mandate by-catch avoidance fishing techniques, and research into alternatives to shark meshing aimed at phasing it out;
• restricting and eventually eliminating 4WD vehicles on beaches and coastal dunes; and
• a ban on the keeping of whales and dolphins in captivity and maintaining the minimum whale watching approach distances to whales and dolphins.