The NT Commercial Barra fishery is currently looking to expand its industry and begin exporting overseas. This industry is already highly destructive, any expansion will be devastating for our NT marine life.
We know this expansion would be highly destructive because the fisheries’ own data shows it poses a ‘severe’ and ‘high’ risk to several threatened, endangered and protected species.
These are highly valued animals such as Sawfish, Dolphins and Turtles that will continue getting tangled in fishing nets!
Not only that, there are myriad other reasons why this expansion cannot go ahead.
- The Fishery does not have a management framework suitable for a modern day environmentally sustainable fishery,
- There are concerns that under current management arrangements, fishing pressure at localised scales (eg. river system) is insufficiently controlled and is potentially driving local barramundi stock depletions of between 40-60%,
- Both target and threatened species taken by this fishery have cultural significance for Aboriginal people,
- The success of the Barramundi aquaculture and fishing tourism industries in the NT may render the commercial barramundi fishery increasingly unfeasible economically,
- Valuable export components of the NTBF are swim-bladders (from threadfin salmon and black jewfish) and shark fin, products both associated with illegal fishing and trade.
- Barramundi gillnet fishing is a major threat to sawfish and river sharks in the NT. The NT is one of the last global strongholds for these threatened species.
- We cannot allow this export expansion to go ahead.
We’ve sent a submission to the NT government outlining our opposition to the Barra Fishery export expansion, you can read more below.