restoration-of-juvenile-prawn-habitat
Chay Haldane asked 5 months ago
Hi Steve, I recently came a cross a research paper titled \\\’Restoring blue carbon ecosystems unlocks fisheries\\\’ potentials\\\’ (published in Restoration Ecology). It evaluates the potential benefit to fisheries as a result of rehabilitation of costal and wetland environments. I fish in the Spencer Gulf Prawn Fishery and we have a been running a \\\’Gulf Care\\\’ program for some time now that aims to conserve and protect our juvenile prawn habitat and build community awareness about the importance of these areas. Currently we are sponsoring repairs/upgrade to the Arno Bay mangrove boardwalk including educational signage that explains the link to our fishery. Given the Algal Bloom that SA is experiencing and the reasons for it (marine heatwave, nutrient load from run off) it may be a good time to ask for more assistance from government to help rehabilitate some of the habitats that are so important to commercial fisheries. My question to the community – Trawl net work is, are any other fisheries involved in these kinds of projects and how do you think we can best capitalize on potential funding for the Algal bloom response to create some longer term beneficial outcomes for our fisheries? Regards, Chay Haldane.
Hi Chay, Thanks for the great question. I have passed it onto Simon Rowe from OceanWatch Australia, who have extensive experience working with the seafood industry in this space – Nathan
Hi Chay, it’s great to see an OceanWatch Master Fishermen so invested in habitat and growing that discussion on actions. I’ll elaborate a bit on an answer.
OceanWatch works on a wide variety of habitat projects which I’ve been involved with over my 20 years with the organisation. (https://www.oceanwatch.org.au/ our work, our past work)
By selling product through the Sydney Fish Market, you could say many fishermen are directly supporting these OceanWatch projects via the box levy we then use to leverage funds from local, state, and federal governments. That said there are many locations, and many challenges and various models are needed to expand this reach. Action on the ground, in policy change and within targeted research all contribute.
Fishers across Australia are seeing firsthand how the health of our catches depends on the health of our coastal and estuarine habitats. Your reflections from the Spencer Gulf Prawn Fishery highlight this link: seagrass meadows, mangroves and saltmarshes aren’t just blue-carbon sinks, they are the nurseries that sustain prawns, crabs, and finfish. While I’ve been told South Australia has few catchment issues due to low rainfall unlike the eastern states, the fisheries are not immune and I have questioned that statement. To expand the discussion I’ve penned a short article What’s a Nature-Based Solution welcome thoughts .
Thanks Simon,
I have just read your article and commented there before I saw this response to my question. Ha! I am still figuring out how to navigate my way around this platform.
I agree with you that SA has low rainfall and therefore perceived less catchment issues. I tend to think that because our SA costal environment is generally nutrient poor when we do have run off events (particularly if they have higher nutrient loads that historically normal) they can trigger significant marine events. It would be great to gain a better understanding of how habitat restoration can help reduce the cumulative impacts to our SA gulf systems.
Cheers,
Chay Haldane.
Hi Chay, thanks for your input, I think you are on the money with regards to the potential of inputs to a nutrient poor ecosystem, the degradation, modification and bypass of wetlands and estuaries will not have helped. Happy to arrange with Simon to present and discuss what’s worked for them, if you think there would be broad interest from your fleet? – Nathan