Australia has taken action to prevent an Irish-owned ”super trawler” from plundering fish stocks around the country’s southeast coast, officials said on Thursday.
Fishermen and conservationists had warned that allowing the 106-metre Veronica into Australian waters would devastate populations of small pelagic fish, species which provide a key link in the ocean food chain.
The New South Wales and South Australian state governments had banned the Veronica from their waters and late on Wednesday the federal government froze the process of issuing new fishing permits for waters east and south of the continent.
Fisheries Minister Ian Macdonald said the Australian Fisheries Management Authority took the action in view of concerns raised about the ship’s potential impact on fish resources.
The freeze on entry permits will now be reviewed in November, he said.
The Veronica, dubbed the ”death ship” by environmentalists because it can hold 5 000 tonnes of fish, docked in Cape Town from the Canary Islands last week on the way to Australian waters.
A spokesperson for the Greens party called the governnment’s decision ”a significant victory” and called on the government to make the ban on super trawlers permanent.
”Australia has the opportunity to demonstrate to the rest of the world that a long-term sustainable fishing industry is possible,” Ian Cohen, a Green member of the New South Wales state Parliament, told The Sydney Morning Herald.
Small pelagic fish form a major part of the diet of many larger ocean predators, ranging from marine mammals to species of sharks, tuna and seabirds. – Sapa-AFP