Redland

This is a response to a comment of mine While I agree we need to protect the environment to ensure our childrens' children will also benefit from it - the implementation of the new zones has to be questioned. I am reliably informed by a member of the public (and holder of a Bachelor of environmental science) who was present during many of the meetings regarding the new Green Zones before they were implemented by the Govt, the report the government has relied upon to implement these zones was based on a thesis prepared by a govt employee - and no-one is able to get a full copy of the thesis or the results - so no-one know how scientific it is and it's certainly not independent. Some of the new green zones are in areas that will have no effect on fish numbers because they're in areas that fish to not breed or eat. The govt introduced a buy-back scheme allowing commercial fishermen to sell their licences to the govt - great in theory - however, there's a loop hole. Commercial fishermen can sell their licence and get for eg $500,000 for it and then turn around and buy another licence that has been handed back for eg $100,000 - the fishermen pocket the difference and return back to the bay to catch the same large quantity they previously were - effectively the larger commercial fishermen are buying out the smaller ones and there's no decrease to the numbers of fish being caught. That needs to be fixed. There needs to be a recreational fishing permit introduced but only if the fees go to Fisheries and not consolidated revenue so Fisheries then have funds to improve boat ramps, educate fisherman and boaties and perform more patrols. The bag limits need to be readdressed again - for example, why is 1 fisherman allowed to catch 30 bream in one outing - who is going to eat that many fish? It's extremely excessive. So with a review of the green zones, fixing the buy back schemes, introducing permits and reviewing bag limits we should be able to get a better balance. Heather Independent for Redlands