2019-07-18 OM Agenda - Item 1 - Attachment 1 - Noosa Fishing Futures

Early analyses have identified differences in the fauna associated with different human activities. The focus
of these analyses will be to:
• Identify if community composition and the numbers and types of animals varies in relation to different human
activities in the shoreline area, within 500m and 1000m, buffer zones;
• Identify which specific groups of animals are most affected and use information on their biology and life
history to infer likely explanations for how human activities are impacting those groups;
• Link environmental data (sediment parameters) and the quantitative threat data to variation in the
abundance of the fauna within different regions of human activity.

The report continues, Extensive trawling in the main regions of the estuary showed that there were very few
prawns present in the sediments and these were found in only a few places. Abundances of other nekton (fish
and crabs) were also small. Again, concern over this specific finding led us to repeat all the trawl sampling to
determine if the abundances of the nekton were still small later in the summer, after expected periods of
recruitment. This additional work was again done at no additional cost to NBRF, but has led to come delays with
progress of the work. These samples are being processed at present. Specimens from both periods of sampling of
the nekton will be used for stable isotope and gut contents analysis as part of the examination of the benthic food
webs within the Noosa River estuary.

A final report from Professor Greg Skilleter is due sometime in 2019. What the various studies show is that
human activity continues to have an impact on the health of the waterways. This is recognised by a local group
of conservation organisations have called on the Noosa Council to ban beam trawling in the relevant T5 fishery
area of Noosa. They see this as another step toward the recovery and restoration process in the rivers and lakes
and the best chance to give the system a break. These groups cite as one of their main reason the recent
interim report from Professor Greg Skilleter. The groups include the Noosa Parks Association, Noosa Shire
Residents and Ratepayers Association, Noosa District Landcare, Sunshine Coast Environment Council, Noosa
Integrated Catchment Association, the Friends of Lake Weyba and Friends of Kinaba. The T5 Beam Trawl
fishery is considered in more detail in the option two of this paper.




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