Jayne Margetts, ABC News 20 Aug 08;
Conservationists say they have major concerns about Australia's contribution to the shark fin industry.
Using data from the Australian Quarantine Inspection Service, the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) has revealed hundreds of tonnes of shark fin are being exported from Australia every year.
They say on a conservative estimate that is the equivalent of 10,000 adult sharks.
The WWF is using the figures to add weight to its call for the Queensland Government to ditch a proposal to issue specific licenses to target sharks.
The Federal Government says a final decision is yet to be made but it will take a precautionary approach.
WWF's Dr Gilly Llewellyn says the appetite for shark fin overseas which Australia appears to be feeding, is insatiable, and in the past 13 months 230 tonnes of shark fin have been exported from our shores, mainly to Asian markets.
"Using a really conservative estimate using the largest possible size of shark, using a low fin to weight ratio, that's still 10,000 sharks that would have needed to be killed for that amount of fin," she says.
Dr Llewellyn says there is no scientific evidence to show whether that amount of shark fishing is sustainable.
She is calling on the federal and state governments to make conservation a priority.
"Start protecting places like Osprey Reef out in the Coral Sea, one of the few places in the world where sharks come in large numbers, they aggregate there," she said.
"Another key action that we're calling for is that we want the Queensland Government to shelve its plans for creating a shark fishery literally in the Great Barrier Reef world heritage area."
Government changes
But the Queensland Government denies its proposed changes to fishing licences would mean the creation of a dedicated shark fishery.
Mark Lightowler from the Queensland Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries says it aims to reduce the amount of shark being taken from Australian waters.
"Currently there's around 1,400 licences that can be utilised to take shark in Queensland waters. The proposal is to reduce that to 200 licences and restrict the catch to a precautionary level of 700 tonnes," he said.
But conservationists say it is nothing more than an administrative change that will not reduce the amount of shark being caught.
Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett says he is yet to reach a final agreement with the Queensland Government over its proposed changes.
But he intends to take a precautionary approach.
"I want to be absolutely convinced on the basis of the material that comes to me that we can agree with the Queensland Government on a management plan that sees fisheries managed sustainably and which doesn't see impacts on fish species and an impact that has been reflected in the figures that have been released today," he said.
Director of Marine Science at Macquarie University, Associate Professor Rob Harcourt, says research in the North Sea has shown the devastating impact that overfishing shark can have.
"There was a whole change right through the ecosystem and the scallop fishery collapsed because with the loss of the sharks the rays increased dramatically and they ate all the scallops and so the fishery collapsed because of the fishery for sharks, so you lost two fisheries," he said.
"Ecosystem effects can happen when you take out a top predator."
