The federal environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, announced the $160m plan on Monday afternoon
WWF-Australia, which campaigned for seven years for an end to commercial gillnet fishing, said it was a “globally significant moment for ocean conservation, fisheries management and the Great Barrier Reef”.
“If all goes to plan, by June 2027 we’ll have a net-free reef where dugongs, turtles, dolphins and other threatened species can swim without the threat of becoming entangled and drowning in a gill net, and that’s a cause for global celebration,” the chief executive, Dermot O’Gorman, said. The Australian Marine Conservation Society said “permanently removing these devastating nets will help populations of threatened species to recover”.
The AMCS has for years called for better protection for threatened hammerhead sharks, including the endangered scalloped hammerhead shark, and welcomed the decision to have hammerheads declared a no-take species. “The ongoing capture of endangered hammerheads for meat and fins has long been out of step with protecting and recovering threatened species in the reef,” the chief executive, Darren Kindleysides said.
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