The federal government has permanently banned supertrawlers from Australian waters following temporary bans first imposed by the Labor government two years ago.
This week the parliamentary secretary for agriculture, Ricard Colbeck, said that the temporary bans which bar vessels longer than 130m from fishing Australian waters would be made permanent with immediate effect.
Campaigners have been working tirelessly to get a permanent ban in Australia - Greenpeace’s Stop the Supertrawler petition garnered nearly 63,000 signatures alone.
The organisation said that all over the world local fisheries have “collapsed in the wake” of these supertrawlers, which they have likened to giant vacuum cleaners of the sea, hoovering up entire schools of fish and wiping out marine life like dolphins and seals.
Greenpeace said that in Tasmania there has already been a dramatic decline in the once-large surface schools of jack mackerel and that inviting super trawlers into the fishery would risk repeating that mistake.
Jack mackerel and similar species are an important food source for endangered bluefin tuna, protected Australian sea lions and other important species.
The organisation has said that these super trawlers not only threaten fish stocks but also pose a huge threat to local and sustainable jobs. In Europe, where the biggest super trawlers are based, everyday fishermen representing 80% of the fishermen in Europe only receive 20% of the quota because super trawlers have apparently squeezed them out.
