Fish fight pits locals against outsiders

In Western Australia when there is a contest between commercial interests and the community, there is a fair chance it involves a big foreign organisation coming up against locals prodded into action by some perceived injustice.

But a state government proposed south coast marine park has turned the standard David v Goliath battle on its head.

In this case, the locals are commercial fishermen, a dwindling breed of small business people whose lives have long depended on the offerings of the Southern Ocean.

And the whale in this contest is The Pew Charitable Trusts, a US-based social and environmental activist not-for-profit organisation with billions of funds endowed by the wealth generated by oil tycoon Joseph Pew.

Like all such fights, it might seem like a one-sided affair, but we are all familiar with community groups that have a way of activating powerful voices when it comes to arguing their cause.

And with some level of government often in the middle of these brawls, as the state Department for Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions is in this case, public interest is inevitably provoked by the debate.

The fishermen of the state’s south coast have found a strong advocate for their cause through WA Fishing Industry Council chief executive Darryl Hockey, who has used his organisation’s main mouthpiece, magazine Prowest, to berate the government for its handling of the development of a big marine park in the region.

WAFIC is the peak body for various specialist commercial fishing groups in the state but it is a relative minnow when compared with Pew’s global presence.

Mr Hockey has attacked the department for its processes, from its science, managerial competency, community engagement and, importantly, its policy agenda.

Specifically, Mr Hockey has claimed Pew has had undue influence on state government policy and process when it comes to marine parks, especially the proposed South Coast Marine Park, which is part of the McGowan government policy launched in 2019 to create five million hectares of new national and marine parks and conservation reserves called the Plan for Our Parks.

According to Mr Hockey, the South Coast Marine Park proposed area represents almost 7 per cent of that total area.

“The marine park proposal put forward by DBCA to lock up over 3,300-square kilometres of productive waters on the south coast is not of co-existence, it is of exclusion,” Mr Hockey said in a recent edition of Prowest.

“It is obviously built on the principle that people are worthless and expendable.

“That’s where they have gone wrong, because, sorry, it’s not just about the conservation of leafy sea dragons, which are doing very well under the current environmental management settings, it’s also about socio-economics.

“It’s about people and families.

“It’s about humanity and our West Australian lifestyle, which the US eco-lobbyists obviously don’t understand.

“None of these factors has been taken into account.”

One of the points he has highlighted in his attacks on the process is that when it came to the department’s community engagement for the proposed marine park, the co-chairs of the sector advisory group representing conservation organisations, Christabel Mitchell and Monique Barker, were both from Pew.

Mr Hockey has been equally unrestrained in his views about the wealth behind Pew and the US tax breaks he claims it receives to wield influence in a distant location like WA’s southern fishery.

The department was asked if Pew had had an undue influence on the policy and process to do with implementing marine parks.

In responding last month, DBCA said it was taking all feedback into account on the proposed South Coast Marine Park.

“We have actively consulted and continue to consult with planning partners along with all key stakeholders and industry groups, including commercial and recreational fishers,” it said.

“The date for the final Community Reference Committee meeting was extended by a month to allow for further feedback.

“Consultation began in September 2021, with a targeted program undertaken earlier this year involving dozens of one-on-one meetings with commercial and recreational fishers.

“Marine parks are created to help conserve habitats and biodiversity, while allowing for a range of commercial and recreational activities, including fishing, diving, boating and tourism in appropriate zones.

“Less than one per cent of state waters on the south coast are currently protected as marine reserves.

“Information received during the planning process is helping shape the draft proposed zoning scheme.

“Western Australians will have an opportunity to comment on the draft management plan, which will include a proposed zoning scheme, when it’s released for a three-month public comment period later this year.

“The feedback will then be reviewed and considered.”

Darryl Hockey is a strong advocate for the south coast's fishermen. Photo: David Henry

Pew also responded to questions from Business News, with locally based Ms Barker making it clear there was nothing underhand in the organisation’s activities.

Ms Barker said Pew had operated in Australia for 15 years with a locally focused program run by a resident team.

Among other things, it has co-led the long-running Save Our Marine Life campaign with another group, Australian Marine Conservation Society.

“The WA government put out that they were exploring a marine park in the south coast as part of the Our Parks commitment,” she said.

“The government, not us, created the consultation process.”

Ms Barker said there was no criteria to nominate for a sector advisory group but, as the list showed, Pew was representing conservation organisations and it did not claim to be local.

“We have been involved in other consultations,” she said. “They are all different.”

Pew certainly has been linked to numerous campaigns on land and sea, either as a leading player, or part of a deeply entwined ecosystem of community, regional, national and international groups. 

In recent times, it has also worked closely with traditional landowners to establish a marine park around the Buccaneer Archipelago on the west coast of the Kimberley in the far north of WA.

Last month, Pew, Save Our Marine Life and AMCS took out a full-page advertisement in The Australian newspaper congratulating the federal government for expanding a marine park around Macquarie Island in the remote south-western Pacific Ocean.

Such marketing power speaks to how well funded that campaign may have been.

Pew certainly has the kind of budget many charitable groups could only dream of.

Annual information statements filed with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission show Pew has spent about $50 million on its Australian conservation advocacy efforts.

The bulk of that was spent in the past five financial years, ending June 30, 2022, with Pew’s expenses in Australia over that time averaging $6.3 million per annum, amounting to $31.6 million.

WAFIC, by comparison, had expenditure last year of $2.4 million, which is largely funded by a levy of relevant fishing licence holders based on a gross value of production.

Esperance Professional Fishermen’s Association president David Gray is critical of Pew’s involvement and believes the government, driven by the bigger goal of creating five million hectares of parks, has not listened to the small businesses that have deep knowledge of the area.

“It is not about the environment it is about a goal, they set that from the beginning,” Mr Gray said.

The process has been skewed, he claimed, to deliver that result.

“The Community Reference Committee is set up like a communist country,” he said.

“The minister chose the community members to give him advice.

“That was a mess.”

Esperance Professional Fishermen’s Association president David Gray (right). Photo: Corrina Ridgway

A draft management plan is expected in September, but Mr Gray said the sector’s hopes were low that their concerns had been heard during the initial period of consultations.

“The next round of maps came out and nothing had changed and that was it,” he said.

“That is end of the consultation.

“It is very poor.

“Commercial fishermen are not against marine parks.

“If there is something out there that needs protecting from something, tell us what it is, and we will deal with it.

“They are just protecting areas; they can’t tell us why.”

It does not take an enormous leap of logic to see parallels with the marine park proposal and the recent controversial introduction of the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act, which has now been scrapped.

Both reflect a wide net with a catch-all requirement, rather than a narrower focus on protecting areas with high heritage or conservation values.

Like the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act, there appears to have been decades of consideration but limited meaningful consultation with commercial interests most negatively impacted by potential change.

There is currently only one relatively small marine park in state waters on the whole of the south coast, the Walpole and Nornalup Inlets Marine Park, although there are four major Commonwealth marine parks off that coast. In terms of state waters, a large amount of area was identified in 1991 by a Marine Parks and Reserves Selection Working Group as candidate areas for marine reservation.

According to a map on the DBCA website, a scientific review in 2021 recommended major extensions to that area.

Most of the coast from Albany to Eucla appears to have been covered by those two reviews. 

Mr Gray said the Department of Primary Industry and Regional Development, which supervises fishing, already had “first world” tools to restrict fishing.

“A lot of the area they are choosing doesn’t make any sense with the fishing methods and compliance and management we have,” he said.

He pointed out a vast array of tweaks the authorities could already use from exclusion zones to adjustments to equipment.

The rules can also do more than oversee fishing, so the needs of non-commercial species such as whales can be managed through the same mechanisms.

Mr Gray said fishing on the south coast was dominated by small operators who were part of the community and whose impact on the resource was negligible.

“You take a small portion of the biomass and make sure it is very sustainable, forever,” he said.

“If you take it away you have not only lost industry in a region you lose food security.

“These are all small family-owned businesses.”

Mr Gray said Pew representatives first arrived in the region some time ago, saying they were there to reach an outcome that the community wanted.

However, he said it was soon clear Pew had a different agenda.

“They were really trying to play nice but they were pushing for maximum parks with little evidence,” Mr Gray said.

“I don’t class them as stakeholders,” he said.

“They are not from here and they are not using it (the resources), they might never come here again but they got equal time to speak as local people."