Commercial fishers in North Queensland are seeking to overturn a planned ban on gillnets in the Great Barrier Reef Heritage Area, citing a report that they say shows the fishery could meet international sustainability standards.
The Queensland Seafood Industry Association commissioned sustainable seafood consultants FishListic to assess the east coast inshore fishery against Marine Stewardship Council criteria. The association released a summary of the findings but withheld the full report from ABC News, describing it as commercially confidential. ABC said the report’s authors verified the summary as accurate.
According to the released findings, the fishery would meet half of the MSC standards without conditions and could satisfy additional requirements after further consultation. FishListic assessed the ecological risk to four threatened species that interact with large-mesh nets—great hammerhead sharks, scalloped hammerhead sharks, green sawfish and hawksbill turtles—as medium, compared with high risk in the Queensland government’s current assessment.
The assessment did not include several dolphin, marine turtle and shark species classified as high risk in a 2021 study. FishListic also did not conduct site inspections, instead using public information, camera footage and data logs supplied by fishers. The fishery has been required to use onboard cameras and record interactions with threatened species since February 2024.
Association representative David Bobberman said the fishery produced between 200 and 300 tonnes of seafood annually and had been reduced from more than 200 available licences to 25. He said additional consultation and research would be needed before the fishery could receive MSC certification, and acknowledged it was not currently certified. He also said fishers did not consider line fishing or tunnel nets viable replacements.
The office of Queensland Primary Industries Minister Tony Perrett said it welcomed the opportunity to conduct a robust review but was waiting for the full report. The federal environment department said the gillnet phase-out was being led by the Queensland government. Queensland government data recorded 188 fatal interactions with endangered scalloped hammerhead sharks and seven narrow sawfish deaths from February 2024, with no other threatened-species deaths reported.