DESPITE there being no expansion to the 21,450 hectares Jervis Bay Marine Park covers, the review, released on Thursday, was never going to satisfy everyone.
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More than 680 submissions were received and 41 information sessions held throughout the community.
Plenty of people had much to say about it and heading up the committee assigned to collating, distilling and passing on the information was Attila Bicskos.
The chairman of the Jervis Bay Marine Park Authority Advisory Committee, Mr Bicskos sees the Marine Park review as a political box-ticking exercise rather than a move to improve protection of the park’s marine life and environment.
“I’m really disappointed. This committee did a lot of work on this review.
“We spent many months on it, countless volunteer hours and it appears the government had already made up its mind.
“It appears it didn’t take any notice of the stakeholders we consulted with.
“We found the concerns for most user groups were an inadequacy in the sanctuary zones in the park.
“The reason for creating a marine park in the first place is to protect the diversity, however the size of the sanctuary zones did not change.
“I think the fishing lobby had the sway over the government.”
Mr Bicskos likened sanctuary zones to wildlife corridors on land and said the committee’s findings showed people felt there was an inadequacy in the links between them.
“The zones are all little pockets that make up only 20 per cent of the park, which means 80 per cent of the park is still fishable,” he said.
“What was the point of having all these people in a ministerially appointed committee who put in all this time and effort when the government of the day ignores it?
“The government didn’t make any major changes. It was just a process we had to go through politically. “They ticked that box and now they don’t have to worry about it again for another 10 years.”
Mr Bicskos said he would like to know why rays were protected in the bay but sharks weren’t.
“If the state government is fair dinkum about protecting the grey nurse shark why aren’t their aggregation sites in Jervis Bay listed? Those sharks are in the bay right now.
“Competition fishing is another thing. I don’t believe there is a viable reason why tournament fishing in a marine park is a good idea.
“Why couldn’t competitions like that be held outside the marine park?
“We’re not going to get a say on this for another 10 years. The committee members did a fantastic job, it was an enormous amount of work but the result was a big letdown.”
When the proposal for the zoning review was released last year Jervis Bay Marine Park manager Matt Carr said the small amount of change proposed was the result of the findings that the park was set up properly in the first place.
“The major outcome of the review was that the marine park is doing a good job.
“It was pretty close to the mark first time around and just needs a bit of adjusting,” he said.