Considerations on Queensland Fisheries

The quota system has contributed significantly to an exorbitant cost of entry into the industry, an increasing portion of the resource being owned by investors, fishermen being reduced to sharecroppers and to an industry in serious decline.  Worse yet, quota is only one element of a much broader malaise.

Although Australia has the largest per capita fishing zone in the world we also have the lowest fisheries harvest rate at about 1/30th of the global average and nearly three-quarters of our seafood consumption is imported. All of these imports come from much more heavily exploited resources elsewhere. Thailand, our largest source of imports, produces over 10 times our total catch with less than 5% of our EEZ area.