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  The Age 17 Nov 06
Sanctuaries will save fishing: Cousteau

Total fishing bans in small marine sanctuaries would be enough to save the NSW fishing industry, ocean filmmaker and environmentalist Jean-Michel Cousteau says.

His warning came just weeks before the state government is due to finalise boundaries of sanctuaries in new marine parks at Port Stephens, north of Sydney, and Batemans Bay, to the south.

The National Parks Association (NPA) conservation group fears that lobbying from the fishing industry may have caused the government to buckle and redraw draft boundaries to make them smaller.

Mr Cousteau, the son of the legendary ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau who co-invented the aqualung for deep sea diving, said he was on the side of the fishermen in supporting sanctuaries as they led to replenishment of swiftly dwindling fish stocks. He said it did not make sense to empty the oceans.

"I know it's not very romantic ... but nature should be looked upon as a business," Mr Cousteau told reporters in Sydney. "It's a capital that has been made available to us ... and it needs to be managed in a sustainable way.

"It really means we can live only on the interest ... the minute we go beyond that we are gobbling up the capital and we have total bankruptcy."

Mr Cousteau cited the example of a similar scheme off Santa Barbara, California, where opposition from fishermen dissolved once they saw the numbers of extra fish spilling out of a sanctuary and into their nets.

That change in opinion came from banning fishing in just 15 per cent of the marine park, he said.

The NPA said if only a modest 30 per cent of the two new parks were protected, the results would be significant, an NPA spokesman said.

The 68-year-old, who has been diving since he was seven, urged the NSW government to not cave in to short-sighted lobbying over the boundaries.

"Let's not compromise, let's do the right thing where we need to do it," Mr Cousteau said. "This will be for the benefit of everyone, particularly the fishing community."

Australian diver Valerie Taylor, famed for her live shark photography in the Jaws movies and who acted as a conservation adviser to the state government in the 1970s, also called for a ban on targeting fish which had gathered to breed.

"It's rank stupidity," she said. "You don't kill all your pregnant cows and expect calves next year."
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