United we Stand Divided We Fall

[squidgie]

Hello Everyone happy New Year

I will try over the next month to encourage the shooters party to look at either creating a fishing database or seeing if there is a possibility of obtaining the fisheries database through freedom of information. Our only real hope for future change is to win balance of power in the state's upper house by informing fisherman on how to make your vote count. If we can achieve even a few hundred thousand votes from our one million NSW fisherman alone the shooters party will be able to hold balance of power instead of the greens and therefore be able to block all bills from being passed and create our own demands (as the greens have done so successfully) until future governments reassess their irresponsible positions on national and marine park closures. I am not a shooter nor am I a member of the shooters party but after much research and discussion with various organisations I believe this may be not only our best shot but more likely our only shot at changing the status quo.

Geoff Ruse
ECOfishers



----- Original Message -----
From: al mcglashan
To: al@almcglashan.com
Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2009 9:06 PM
Subject: a time to act


Hey everyone



I recently visited Heron Island in Queensland and was amazed that the island openly promoted the fact that it was a ‘green’ island encompassed by a 'no take' marine park. Fishing was not even on the activities list yet every day they put on massive seafood buffets. What I found ironic was that they promoted the fact that the region didn’t allow any fishing near the island and yet everyone happily ate seafood seemingly oblivious to the fact of how it was caught. In fact one group I met commented on how terrible recreational fishing was while they piled their plates high with seafood!
This coupled with the recent attacks by green groups got me thinking long and hard about recreational fishing in Australia and where it needs to go. Recent threats like National Parks Association proposal has really highlighted that we do need to stand up and fight for our right to fish.
Despite the fact that fishing is one of the most popular sports in the country with an estimated 3.5 million participants anglers are poorly represented by fractional groups. There is no shortage of representation like Recfish, VRfish, GFAA, AFTA, Anglers Action Group, Ecofishers, Australian Trout Foundation, etc but this is our downfall. We need a national focus that has a single goal – to promote and protect our right to fish. As far as I see it there is major infighting amongst the various organisations and there is no clear national direction that unifies all parties. It is this lack of unity that really undermines our position to be a powerful force promoting and enhancing recreational fishing Australia wide.

This is a far cry from other highly organised groups like the shooters party. With the sole aim of protecting shooters rights they now have representation in parliament and are making headway promoting the sport in a positive light. They have done a sensational job and not only is the sport growing but they are gaining ground. In NSW hunters are allowed to hunt in an ever increasing number of state forests and in Victoria you even hunt in national parks. But while hunters continue to gain access anglers are losing ground at an alarming rate. Marine Parks, particularly in Queensland and NSW, are steadily locking anglers out of vital fishing areas. While on the scheme of things the ‘no fishing’ zones are small they still have a huge impact on fishing because they are invariably ALWAYS prime fishing spots. What really concerns me is there’s no room for ‘catch and release zones’ or ‘lure and fly only’ instead we are simply being locked out and threatened by marine park authorities with massive fines. From my own experience with the Marine Parks Authority in NSW is that they are extremely anti recreational fishing.

The fishing fraternity’s lack of political strength has been reflected with our terrible representation in the marine parks in NSW and Queensland. Let’s look at individual cases like Seal Rocks north of Port Stephens anglers and spearfishermen were locked out of the prime areas around the productive islands and for 3 nautical miles around. Divers are still allowed in with no restrictions at all. Divers don’t have to pay for a licence and yet anglers do but we then got shafted. Some may argue that divers have less impact, but so do anglers who choose to release everything they catch. This is just one small case study that is mirrored right around the country and in essences shows we are getting a seriously raw deal. Let’s turn the tables if we aren’t allowed access why should other user groups like divers (who were vocal about kicking anglers out!) have unlimited access?

Over the last decade the increasingly powerful green groups have been seriously eroding our right to fish. It is high time we focused our combined strengths and protected our right to fish. Why is it that NSW anglers pay for a licence to fish increasing fewer areas? Anglers should not be the scapegoat for declining fish stocks when others are responsible.

What we need is a full time lobbyist in Canberra whose sole job is to protect our right to fish. Funding this can be done in a vraiety of ways from the tackle, boating and marine related companies or alternately we could even look at a small levy on fishing related products like tackle, etc.

We need to become more offensive, instead of always being caught on the back foot by green groups. Ultimately we need to promote fishing to the masses in a positive way to help give the public a true perception. For example the recent proposal by the National Parks Association to lock up Long Reef off Sydney apparently to protect Grey Nurse Sharks (GNS) should be instantly hit with a media release from sportfishermen stating something along the lines of ‘In an effort to preserve GNS we are proposing a voluntary ban on the use of wire around Long Reef to help protect GNS’.

Now we know there are very few GNS at Long Reef but this action, if promoted correctly, will help to promote anglers as true conservationists and ultimately help protect our sport. On another note why don’t we register something like the Marine Parks Association and use that as our media outlet exactly as the NPA has done. They have nothing to do with National Parks at all yet by their namesake they have scored heaps of free and very damaging publicity. In the USA Ducks Unlimited is the hunting fraternity and they have huge power. It really is high time the fishing fraternity stood up and became a force to be reckoned with.

Once we fix up our internal problems and form a single spearheaded approach we then need to align ourselves with other parties like shooters, 4x4, boating, spearfishers, and even commercial fishermen as well as some conservation groups to strengthen our stance. At present I believe that some people that hold positions of power in fishing organisations are not right for the job and are more interested in maintaining their ivory towels than doing what is right for the sport. They are a major reason for the lack of unity. We need to forget about just focusing on our own backyards with a bandaid approaches and turn our attention to a national level.

We need to work in closer with the media and not just the fishing media but the mainstream media to help get the message out, because as I see it anglers are the best conservationists around and yet green groups constantly promote us as the bad guys deflecting the blame from real issues. We also need to really use the media to promote what recreational anglers do that is positive. Gamefishermen have volunteered thousands of hours and millions of dollars to tag fish in the name of science yet this has never been conveyed to the media or all the volunteer stocking programs or kids fishing programs. Everything we do that can be promoted needs to be done so.

I am a passionate angler and conservationist. I am one of the lucky few that make my living from fishing and am keen to step up to the plate to really help push the issue to unify everyone and help build up fishing to what it should be in this country – a force to be reckoned with.

The governing bodies and the public alike need to understand that to protect the environment we need to educate instead of locking users out, which is a copout. With education comes understanding and that ultimately leads to respect and a need to preserve. This is where I see that recreational angling should take up the fight.

Fish hard
Al McGlashan





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[maxi]

ok



i agree with al all the way, what he says is undeniably correct really, so what can our site do to help the cause ??? any ideas people ???? some kind of working commitee needs to be formed maybe... i dont know ?????

[maxi]

his email link does not work ...

[pink nipper]

Squidge,

This is a hard one but yes we need a fishing organization like the "shooters party" in Australia. The "shooters party" in the USA
is extremely strong and influential.The organization needs to replace the existing groups that are generally poorly funded and
each also has a slightly different agenda. We need high profile spokespeople like Andrew ET Ettinghousen to help and also
the Ozzy fishing companies like Alvey for example who should sponsor such a group - after all they make a living out of us fisho's.
Speaking of which if we look at things from a dollars and cents perspective -

FINANCIALLY SPEAKING -

If there's up to 3.5 million recreational fishermen in Australia and only 10% paid a $20.00 annual membership fee to "The Australian Fishing Party" for example then we would
have 7 million dollars a year - big clout and enough to buy the technology, and employ people who are both passionate and qualified to grow such an entity.

If there's 3.5 million recreational fisherman in Australia and they all had to pay $30.00 a year to the government for a fishing lisence for examle then the government would make
105 million dollars a year

If there's 3.5 million recreational fishermen in Australia and on average each spent only $100.00 a year on fishing (eg tackle, travell, accomadation, food, boats, lisences, etc. )
then the Australian economy would be 350 million dollars a year better off

So the one thing we know it all makes cents or is that sense.

[Prof]

Well I would only be to happy to pay an annual fee of say $30 to help to get a Fishing Party off and running!!

But as has been said we need identities and large tackle companys to come on board and promote the angling fraternity in the right light to the general public.

maybe we could start to email the PR departments of the major companies in the tackle and boating industries, to help support our cause..at the very least we may make them think a little bit about what direction there businesses may go if these marine parks become a reality and lock us honest anglers out for good!!

We could write letters to ET as was stated earlier, he may be willing to do a segment on his show to discuss the situation ???

Cheers.

[maxi]

Al Mcglashan is just about as high profile as you want i reckon with all the media experience to go with it..

he is an ex, and maybe still is, an editor of modern fishing or fishing world glossy mags, i dont buy them anymore...
and is making some awesome dvd's at the mo out of his boat "strikezone", hence his dvd's are called strikezone 1, 2, 3 etc..


yep $30 is a small price to pay ...... im right behind this and will do whatever i can to help... so what do we do now ???

anyone got Al's e mail addy that works ..??? squidgie ????? ... does ben have it mate ???? im sure he would be able to get it ??

do you have any idea if B & B are gunna do anything ...support wise ... ????

this is a huge must do thing here .... scares me a bit ... and makes me sad that were even discussing it ...
Al's letter hit home with me ... i cant see any other way out .....

Maxi

[squidgie]

Will see if i can get it

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squidgie

[maxi]

hope ya can mate... good luck !!
posted his thoughts on another site and only got replies from thinking anglers....so far... all in the affirmitve ....... be great to have a working link to him....

[straydog]

As he states , fishos have representatives through the different organisations , one of the big things is to get them all together, maybe work in with the shooters party, when you ask about i think you will find a lot of fishos also shoot.
If it hasnt already been done, this needs to get out to the different fishing forums, get evryone to work together under one banner, and i dont think to many fishos would balk at contributing to hlp, and i would be disappointed if the big fishing suppliers ETC didnt come on board, be it through lobbying or donations ( 5% levy on goods donated to the party ...sure most wouldnt mind paying some thing like that if it was going to the cause) ( fishos united ) or what ever the party got called.