- University of Queensland research finds at least 10% of Australia's seafood exports since 1999 have been threatened species
- Under the EPBC Act, threatened fish species can be targeted and sold thanks to a special exemption known as 'conservation dependent'
- Australia needs ALP's promised strong nature laws
- Overfishing of endangered orange roughy may have led to a fishery collapse
Australia's nature laws have failed to protect our iconic and threatened species, with a new study alarmingly showing that 10% of Australia's seafood exports by weight since 1999 have been threatened species.
The Australian Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act's threatened species classification system includes a special category just for fish called 'Conservation Dependent,' where endangered species can still be targeted and sold by commercial fishers, and are not subject to other protections given to other threatened and endangered species.
Sustainable Seafood Program Manager Adrian Meder said: "Most Australians would be horrified to know that not only are we allowing the target and sale of our threatened species, but that in many cases they're being exported overseas. Commercially harvesting our numbats or black cockatoos would rightly be out of the question, and yet we allow the same practice under the waves. Our Aussie fish can be officially recognised as needing protection, but could still end up on someone's dinner plate on the other side of the world.
"Our nature laws are clearly broken. Australian wildlife urgently needs strong new laws that ensure all threatened species receive the protection they need."
The University of Queensland study analysed more than two decades of seafood export data, specifically looking at four 'conservation dependent' species: school shark (Galeorhinus galeus), orange roughy (Hoplostethus atlanticus), blue warehou (Seriolella brama), and southern bluefin tuna (Thunnus maccoyii). The research revealed these four species were exported primarily to Japan, China, New Zealand, Mauritius and the United States.
Alarmingly, these species were eligible for higher threat categories under the EPBC Act - Critically Endangered for the blue warehou or Endangered for the school shark and orange roughy - yet they continue to be targeted and sold by commercial fishers, with no recovery plans in place.
Fish species listed as Conservation Dependent are not eligible for recovery plans, unlike other listed threatened species, with management instead falling to the Australian Fisheries Management Authority. The study found that the listing of these species as Conservation Dependent has led to a lack of recovery for several populations of school shark, blue warehou and orange roughy.
Mr Meder said: "The orange roughy fishery has been of particular concern recently. We are worried that the orange roughy numbers at one of the major fishing sites, at the Cascade Plateau, may have collapsed altogether - like in the 1990s - after the Australian Government invited an industrial factory freezer trawler to fish those grounds. This vessel caught about 200-300 tonnes a year for just a couple of years from these grounds until 2021. Since then the Australian fleet caught 16 tonnes in 2022, seven tonnes in 2023, and abandoned the fishing grounds altogether this fishing season just ended despite having a 437-tonne catch allowance, reporting concerns the consistency of fishing at the Cascade Plateau has 'disappeared'. Scientific surveys in 2021 and 2022 were unable to even find enough orange roughy there to count, so a scheduled updated scientific assessment could not even be conducted."
The authors also note that these findings don't take into account species that are globally recognised as threatened, but have not been listed under the EPBC Act, such as bigeye tuna (Thunnus obesus) and blue marlin (Makaira nigricans).
