PROTEST AND DEVELOPMENT OF FISHERIES

Introduction

The twin roles of government as developer and guardian of community owned renewable natural resources pose special problems for public servants in resource departments. Although the spotlight has fallen brightly on forestry in recent times, the development of fisheries resources has been just as controversial. Since 1941 Tasmanian governments have given high priority to development when considering fisheries policy and this trend reached a peak in 1977 with the creation of the Fisheries Development Authority. The Authority was created as "a commercially oriented organisation" to foster development and to continue the traditional role of conservation and regulation. To achieve the prime objective substantial resources were transferred from regulation and management to developmental projects. This developmental priority of government placed great stress on the professional fisheries managers, as the Department's prime clients - commercial and recreational fishers, and other elements in the community feared and rejected the pro-developmental thrust.

Whilst recognising the importance of conserving exploited fish stocks, the long time-frame, and intangible nature of such policies renders them less attractive to politicians than the prospect of stimulating capital investment and creating employment through new fisheries. In a State, or country, surrounded by sea the lure of fisheries development has been irresistible to Australian politicians throughout this century.

The controversy which surrounded the establishment of Australia's first major fish meal plant in Tasmania provides a unique opportunity to examine the nature and dynamics of the pro versus anti development debate in fisheries. The developers and the Tasmanian Government had to withstand a vigorous protest in 1972, yet when the industry was re-established a decade later scarcely a word was said against it.

Since the Royal Commission into Tasmanian Fisheries in 1882 the potential of the jack mackerel stocks off the east coast was well recognised. Despite several attempts to develop a fishery ninety years elapsed before there was any significant utilisation of this fish. The announcement of a proposed fish meal industry based on the jack mackerel, and located at Triabunna, triggered a major conservation versus development debate. The controversy was the biggest fishery conservation issue in Tasmania and perhaps only the anti-whaling campaign exceeded it in media coverage. This incident is interesting in the context of this Conference for the following reasons

In 1985, at the height of the power of the Tasmanian environmental movement, the same stock of fish was subjected to the same form of fishing and the fish were again converted to fish meal, and larger catches were allowed, yet there was no significant questioning of the project. The Government was praised for its support of the venture even though the production involved less value adding, the plant was a temporarily imported barge and the vessels were second hand. Whereas the origins of the initial developers - the USA, was a major bone of contention, the fact that the new venture was headed by a South African was accepted with little comment.

What does the markedly differing response of the conservation movement to these identical developmental proposals reveal?

The First Development - 1972

Several companies had been formed to exploit pelagic fish such as jack mackerel off the east coast of Tasmania between 1925 and 1950 but none had got to the stage of full commercial fishing. In 1970 two more companies showed interest but when 5 tons of fish were caught in D'Entrecasteaux Channel no market could be found. As is common, the fishers sought Government assistance to solve the problem. The Fisheries Division of the Tasmanian Department of Agriculture urged the establishment of a fish meal industry to utilise the fish. Jack mackerel is not an attractive table fish and is usually canned as a very low value product or converted to a dry meal for use in stock foods. (Australia has no other significant local supply of fish meal and still imports over 27,000 tonnes a year.) Jack mackerel are also widely distributed throughout the world and this, combined with the high costs of fishing in Tasmania, had previously impeded the development of a local fishery.

To make the venture viable large quantities would have to be caught; and to an industry used to landing small quantities of high vale fish such as rock lobster, catches of several thousand tonnes were expect to alarm fishermen. Thus the Minister responsible for fisheries, Doug Clark, discussed the general possibility of a fish meal industry with fishermen during his annual tour of all the branches of the organisation representing Tasmanian fishermen, the Professional Fishermen's Association (PFAT), in 1970 and 1971. No objections to a purse-seine fishery based on jack mackerel were heard. The development of a fish meal industry was greatly assisted when CSIRO appointed Dr. June Olley to head a fish technology unit in Hobart. Dr. Olley had a world wide reputation as a fish technologist, was secretary of the scientific committee of the International Association of Fish Meal Manufacturers and a world authority on fish meal. Although her appointment was entirely unrelated to the proposal, her advice was to be crucial in the establishment of the company later named Fish Protein Concentrate (Tas) Pty. Ltd.

In May 1971 two Americans, David Wallach, a banker, and Max Cohen, a chemical engineer, approached the Liberal Government with a proposal to manufacture high quality fish meal produced at low temperature by solvent extraction known as fish protein concentrate (FPC). FPC had been developed in the 1960s as a tasteless, odourless protein additive for human food and was heralded as a major breakthrough in combating malnutrition in less developed countries. The product had not attracted the expected market in the third world and development had stagnated. Wallach and Cohen proposed to produce a non-deodorised, but not tasteless, FPC as a high quality protein additive for stock feed. After consideration by Dr. Olley's group, discussions with the Department of Primary Industry in Canberra on fishing rights for jack mackerel in Commonwealth waters, and the importation of two new purse seiners to be built in Korea, the Fisheries Division was satisfied that the project should be supported.

Clark was also Minister for Industrial Development, and his Department had been an active proponent of the project from the beginning. Australian financial support was to be primarily provided by the then newly established Commonwealth Development Corporation. By the end of 1971 an agreement was ready for consideration by the Tasmanian Cabinet and Clark issued a statement on the 20th December which foreshadowed a major new industry for Triabunna. The detailed statement discussed purse seining for pelagic fish,the production of fish meal, and American finance for $2.5 million capital investment. Cabinet agreed in principle in February, and gave the Company a formal proposal in March. The Company issued a major press statement towards the end of that month outlining their plans. Clark responded with a public statement saying the Government's support for the project depended on the Company agreeing to guarantied participation for "local fishing interests". The Leader of the Opposition was quoted in the same press story as seeking similar guarantees and the relationship of the project to traditional fisheries. The Company accepted the Government's proposal, including guarantees for the local industry, and on April 19th 1972 signed an agreement.

The agreement bound the Company to exploit the resource up to maximum sustainable yield and to provide all available information to the Fisheries Division. The Company would employ Tasmanians "wherever possible" and purchase fish from independent Tasmanian fishermen. The Division would introduce special licences and fix the number of those licences to regulate the total fishing power that could be used in the fishery in order not to exceed the target catch. Independent, non-Company, fishermen were assured of one third of the total fishing power. The Company and Government would annually determine a target catch. Additional regulations would supplement the protection of both the fish stocks and the markets of traditional fishermen. All the commitments and proposed controls were written into the agreement which was to be valid for five years, with the option to renew for another five years if performance targets had been reached.

The Government's contribution to the development was by way of infrastructure support - foreshore land at Triabunna, an access road, and new supplies of fresh water and power. The State Government would appoint a biologist to monitor the fishery and the Commonwealth would spend $92,000 on purse-seine investigations.

The project received a substantial, unexpected, advantage when the world's largest fishery - for Peruvian anchoveta, began to collapse producing a world wide shortage of fish meal. The increased price of fish meal seemed to remove any doubts about the commercial viability of the venture. The project had bipartisan political support - the preparatory phase was conducted under the Liberal-Centre Party Government led by Angus Bethune and was approved by Cabinet just before that government resigned on March 14th 1972. The new Labor Government readily accepted the agreement. Although the PFAT state council unanimously approved the project at a meeting in Launceston in June, from July to November 1972 the project, and the Government, was subjected to the biggest and most virulent campaign of protest yet seen in Australian fisheries. All the elements of protest that are now commonplace in such campaigns, but which were then novel, were used by a diversified group of opponents to destroy the project.

The Protest.

The first public criticism, alleging "development at any price", came less than a week after the agreement was signed, when the Examiner published a letter from the wife of a Hobart fisherman alleging that the project's trawlers would destroy fish stocks. G P Smith, a Launceston ship's chandler and vigorous proponent of fisheries development, immediately defended the project. The "Saturday Evening Mercury" reported in a double page spread reporting the protest on June 3rd.

Initial leadership of the protest was assumed by the Master Fishermen's Association(MFA), which in June 1972 had a mere handful of members. Although the PFAT was the effective representative body, and had been so for 25 years, splinter groups, spawned by disagreements on particular policies often appeared. Such factions formed around a dominant figure and gradually faded when the issue which lead to its formation lost potency. For much of the period between 1960-1980 fishermen in the south eastern areas of the State viewed with suspicion the more aggressive expansion of those in Bass Strait and the north west. When the former PFAT President Louis Shoobridge was elected to the Legislative Council, as the member for Queenborough in 1968,there was a perception that influence in the PFAT passed from the traditional leaders in the south to the north west. The fishermen with the smaller, traditional fishing boats in south-eastern Tasmania were ripe to protest against a developmental project, supported by the Government, the PFAT, and big boat fishermen. The MFA became the umbrella covering those disaffected with the PFAT.

The MFA, via its vice-chairman, D.E. Parish, began by attacking a statement by the Premier, Eric Reece, for inaccuracy. Parish claimed in the Mercury on 4 July that allowing FPC to take species other than jack mackerel

"would rob them (fishermen) of their livelihood and bind their rights exclusively to this foreign company .... with the rapid decline of crayfish production it is absolutely essential that the crayfish fleet ... has access to all Tasmanian fishing resources".

Parish's statement was riddled with errors, which Reece corrected in a reply the next day, but the MFA's outrageous claims were enough to ignite a bushfire of protest.

The MFA were quickly joined by other groups including -

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The groups protested about -

They alleged that -

In a statement to the Mercury The President of the MFA claimed that the United Tasmania Group had joined them in the protest, however there appears to be no record of public statements by the UTG on the matter. The UTG was formed in March 1972 and is the generally acknowledged precursor of the Tasmanian Green Movement. After its failure to influence the State election it is noteworthy that another Hobart based conservation protest failed to attract its support. Max Cohen addressed a symposium organised by the Tasmanian Conservation Trust on Aug 7th and, with Roy Fagan, appeared to satisfy the majority of the audience that the project was not a threat.

The capacity of the protest to generate publicity soon led to the campaign being taken over by the better organised and most powerful group - the left wing unions. An Environmental Action Committee was established under the chairmanship of the State Secretary of the Miscellaneous Workers Union, Ken Williams. The most powerful element in this body was the Union Committee consisting of Don Moore of the Electrical Trades Union, C. Jordan of the AMWU, the President of the Miscellaneous Workers Union, Leo Brown, R. Hevey of the Plumbers and Williams. Later The State Secretary of the Builders Labourers, "Speed" Morgan joined the group. The tactics used began with meetings and press statements and moved to specially printed circulars, a special edition of the student newspaper "Togatus", calls for a public enquiry, political lobbying, threats of action in the High Court and finally the threat of direct industrial action against the construction of the plant. Costello, a favourite son of the Burnie Trades and Labour Council, hit back at the union opposition- "he was astounded that at a time of less than full employment some trade unionists should criticise the proposed industry without discussing the matter with him." Harradine also publicly attacked the Committee calling them "ill- informed" and "band waggonists". The TTLC considered the project on 14 September and agreed to seek a meeting with Government to answer any questions still outstanding. It unsuccessfully attempted to disenfranchise the unofficial Environmental Action Committee by forming an official standing committee on environmental control.

A few Liberal party parliamentarians began to question the project but an important political target was the Commonwealth Minister responsible for fisheries at the time,Peter Nixon, whose electorate included the fishing port of Lakes Entrance where a very small fish meal plant operated. As Minister, Nixon could have prevented the importation of the Company's new vessels and confined fishing to the three mile band of water adjacent to Tasmania. Nixon rejected the protests but did have a 100 mile diameter exclusion zone created around Lakes Entrance to protect local fishermen from competition from the Tasmanian based boats. All the powerful Tasmanian Government figures vigorously defended the project and they were supported by Doug Clark for the Opposition, Brian Harradine and several professional fishing industry leaders. The Mercury published a long defence of the project by Clark on 11 September, in which he quoted much of the agreement between the Government and the Company.

At the end of September the MFA held its annual meeting at the Trades Hall in Hobart. The Association now claimed 156 members and elected Wayne Baker as its new president. The meeting considered the range of tactics available including harassing the operations of the Company and the withholding of licence fees. Finally they agreed to arrange a joint approach to the government by the MFA, the PFAT and the Tasmanian Fish Processors and Exporters Association demanding a full enquiry. The joint approach was stillborn when, ten days later, the PFAT Annual Conference rejected the motion of the Channel Branch to oppose the venture. The crucial factor in that debate was the acknowledgement by the Executive that they had seen the agreement between the Company and the Government and were satisfied. In his annual report the President D C French said

With the Commonwealth Government, the dominant industry body and the Opposition supporting the Government, the opponents now had to rely on the unions. The Deputy Premier and Minister for Industrial Development, R.F. Fagan, invited the union opponents to meet him and discuss their complaints. After a briefing from the Secretary for Fisheries, and a period of questions, Fagan gave a masterful display of advocacy in destroying the case against the project and obtaining the support of the key unions particularly the Builders Labourers. Fagan's decisive intervention effectively ended the protest campaign on the spot. So the struggle to establish a fish meal industry which had extended for almost 100 years cleared the biggest hurdle and fishing commenced.

The fishing aspect of the industry was very successful. The Korean built vessels performed well, the crews and gear were effective and aerial spotting of schools was developed. Fish were caught from the southern NSW coast down the east coast of Tasmania and off the west coast. In addition to jack mackerel, the vessels landed skipjack tuna, yellow tail kingfish, trevalley and blue mackerel, all in commercial quantities. Fish meal and fish oil found a ready market as did more exotic products such as fish scales for use in the manufacture of cosmetics. FPC landed over 6,000 tonnes of jack mackerel in 1973-4.

Yet the project collapsed in 1975 due to the failure of a single link in the long chain from fish to customer. The technique selected for manufacture consisted of reducing the fish to slurry and spraying that on a drying drum. The dried "fish" was then treated with organic solvent to remove the fat and oil. No suitable drying drum was available so the Company utilised one made for producing powdered milk. The plan was never able to operate at capacity, thus unrefrigerated stocks of fish rotted when the drying drum jammed. The smell prompted the local, Spring Bay, Council to threaten closure of the plant. The diminished cost flow caused the financiers of the project, particularly the AIDC and the Commercial Bank to force a restructuring of the Company, and the M.G. Kailis Group of Western Australia was invited to take over the venture. The new Kailis management quickly determined that to save the venture the manufacturing process should be replaced by a traditional high temperature/pressure meal plant. However the financiers, particularly AIDC were not prepared to inject the capital needed to re-equip the venture. The Company was liquidated, the plant sold and the vessels were bought by a New Zealand fishing company.

The Second Venture

A very successful fish meal industry based on jack mackerel has operated off South West Africa for many years, and when a major participant in that fishery expressed interest in establishing in Tasmania both the Department of Sea Fisheries and the Tasmanian Development Authority offered to assist. A new company, Australian Fisheries Development Pty Ltd (AFD) was formed by Thornton Booth and, with the Department, undertook a joint assessment of the resource. The assessment satisfied Booth that adequate stocks of fish were there, and that the tried and proven techniques of fishing and producing meal that he had used in Africa would be effective in Tasmania.

Whereas the FPC project involved a radical production technique and new vessels, AFD used standard methods and had the advantage of the former company's experiences and some of their personnel. Three second-hand Norwegian built vessels were imported from Yemen and refitted in Launceston, the Tasmanian Development Authority (TDA) substantially supported the refitting. The Company was also able to acquire a complete fish meal factory from Yemen in the form of a barge "Protangue", originally provided to FAO by Norway. The factory was refitted in Singapore and moored at the jetty built by the Government for FPC. It is important to appreciate that the AFD project was established with minimum capital investment and scarcely any spin off to the local economy when compared to FPC. The Tasmanian Government offered little direct incentive to the second project but the Tasmanian Development Authority and latterly the Tasmania Bank have been heavily involved. A sophisticated management plan for the fishery was developed by the Department in consultation with the Company and the Tasmanian Fishing Industry Council. Whilst FPC was advantaged by the collapse of the Peruvian fishery, AFD had similar unexpected luck with the establishment of a new salmon farming industry which created a Tasmanian market for most of its production.

AFD began commercial fishing in March 1985 and caught almost 5,000 tonnes in the first three months. In the three years from July 1985 to June 1988 a further 102,000 tonnes was processed into meal. Environmental conditions depressed catches to 8,800 and 5,500 respectively in the past two years. These low catches combined with high interest rates threaten the viability of the venture. AFD was required to replace the "Protangue" with a permanent on-shore plant by 1990. The venture was purchased by a Tasmanian Company, Industrial Fish Tasmania in 1988. Financing this $10 million investment has unfortunately coincided with two consecutive poor seasons.

Comparisons

Superficially the first venture contributed more to Tasmania during the development phase yet it was vehemently opposed. The current project invested little at the same stage yet was widely welcomed. Traditional fishermen were gravely concerned at the operation of purse-seiners in 1972 but not a decade later. Even without a formal organisation a major conservation protest campaign was run in 1972, but no comment came from the ACF, the Wilderness Society or the Australian Democrats in 1984. The Fisheries Division and the Government were widely castigated for proposing the industry in 1972 but praised for its initiative 12 years later. Why?

Perhaps. Yet media stories, particularly from the tuna fishery still promote the same views.

Certainly the fire of protest was quickly extinguished by Roy Fagan's demolition of the foundation of the case. The campaign did not begin to grow as a political force until the union group became involved after the election of the Labor Government. The Environmental Action Group was supported by the Launceston Trades Hall Council

Unlikely. A South African interest in 1984 was scarcely more acceptable than Americans in 1972. Both managers - Cohen and Booth resided at Triabunna and although the latter probably handled the local interests better this was not very significant.

One major difference was certainly crucial and that was the relative "fisheries experience" of the two promoters. Neither Wallach nor Cohen had previously been involved with fishermen, but Booth had spent much of his life in the industry in the sensitive position of fleet manager. Booth could and did talk to fishermen as an equal and an expert in the behaviour of jack mackerel, the production of fish meal and as a purse seine fisherman. He commanded respect from local fishermen and actively participated in their affairs. Thus he was ideally placed to nip in the bud any concerns from other fishermen. Booth was also an able television performer, and adept at defending his development before the cameras; FPC suffered badly through the absence of a credible public advocate outside Government.

The UTG was formed in March 1972 to fight the election on the platform of saving Lake Pedder. It had not yet grown into a broad environmental movement and some members lost heart after the elections the remainder apparently choose to devote their energies to continuing the fight in the Legislative Council and in Canberra. In addition the Group did not have the sophisticated media capabilities of today's environmental lobby to use. It is also possible that the UTG recognised that the proposal posed no threat to the State's marine resources.

Had Doug Parrish, and the MFA, been able to engender the support of a conservation lobby such as the Wilderness Society then it seems likely that FPC would have gone the way of the Wesley Vale mill. However were he to have been faced by Thorton Booth the horror stories of purse-seining may well have been still born. Certainly fewer fishermen would have joined the MFA in 1972. On the other hand the Government knew the personalities and the motives of their ultimate opponents in the earlier battle and quickly won the day when able to directly face them. Had the FPC battle been lost it is extremely unlikely that AFD would have re-established the industry and in turn the future of the salmon industry as well as the fishery itself would have been in doubt.

Fisheries and the General Environmental Debate.

Fisheries managers and administrators were no strangers to controversy prior to 1971 but those debates were largely related to contests for priority between sub groups of fishermen. The 1970s saw the start of concerns by fishermen for the marine environment,because their economic future depended on it scientists, because such concern usually attracted new research funding, and segments of the public objecting to the pace of development. The broadening of fisheries consultation placed new stresses on public servants attuned to discussing fisheries problems with the industry but unfamiliar with the negotiating tactics of other groups and ill equipped to negotiate through the media.

The finding of heavy metals in oysters was one of a number of "environmental" problems which affected the fishing industry during the 1970s. Much of the responsibility for these crises stemmed, not from an upsurge in pollution, but from the discovery of a new chemical analyser. The atomic absorption spectrophotometer(AAS) first became available in Tasmania in 1971 and allowed the measurement of elements in concentrations as low as one part per million. Industrial pollution overseas, particularly in Japan, had alerted the community to the dangers of elements like mercury and cadmium in seafood. The Professor of Chemistry at the University of Tasmania acquired a new AAS and the University began a programme of testing food and water for heavy metals. This interest in analysis in Tasmania, and elsewhere, discovered that most shellfish had metal levels above the limits set for food. These limits had been set many years before to control the contamination of canned food and were often set at the smallest concentration measurable by current analytical methods. Oysters contained zinc and cadmium, scallops cadmium, mussels lead, crayfish arsenic and large fish such as shark, some deep sea fish and tuna had high levels of mercury.

The discovery that some seafood exceeded the prescribed safe level did not signify any sudden real increase in pollution but the impact on public health authorities was dramatic. The harvesting of oysters and mussels from the Tamar and Derwent was banned and several other areas were placed in jeopardy. The Victorian government banned the sale of large school shark which, combined with market reaction to pollution, severely affect shark fishermen. Fishermen became aware of the threat to their future posed by pollution and the community's reaction to additives in food. Fishermen's concerns and protest demonstrations over State Government approval to allow dumping at sea by NW Acid off Burnie, EZ off Tasman Island, and to allow the same company to substantially increase metal pollution in the Derwent from the Risdon plant, had no immediate effect.

The Bethune Cabinet received advice from its fisheries experts of concern at the increased metal load on the Derwent if the expansion of the Risdon plant was approved. When the controversy over mercury levels began the market for some fish collapsed and the Government needed to quickly restore confidence in the product without ignoring any real threat to public health.The Director of Public Health convened a standing committee on metals in seafood which involved both State government departments, CSIRO and the University. This committee did valuable work of a number of years in coordinating advice and research. The research eventually proved that shellfish and the large fish naturally concentrated metals and at least in the case of mercury held it in a much less toxic form than mercury picked up from industrial pollution. Health standards were thus sympathetically reviewed to take into account the absence of recorded ill effects from consumption of seafood harvested from unpolluted water. The Director of Public Health adopted a policy of safeguarding health by confining harvest to approved waters, this policy became the foundation of all subsequent efforts to ensure seafood quality in Tasmania; some other states demanded that oysters be cleaned (depurated) after harvest. The impact of the "metal levels in sea food scare" lasted just a few years and by 1976 the shark fishery had recovered, the oyster industry adjusted and crayfish and scallop were found to be safe. The virtue of the Tasmanian policy has been graphically seen again recently when flooding in New South Wales again resulted in many people poisoned and oyster farms were closed.

Fishermen have a genuine concern for the environment and have shown a readiness to act in its defence. The professional officers engaged by the Government to investigate and manage fisheries are just as committed to that cause and in some aspects better placed to modify policies. However both State and national governments are committed to economic growth and the commercial utilisation of natural resources and must be prepared to trade some environmental change for employment and wealth. The professional fisheries administrator is generally well prepared to develop policies which allow utilisation of the resource within a long term sustainable framework but these examples demonstrate that public controversy is rarely that simple. Failure to identify and counter the hidden agendas will result in a morass of argument with numerous groups and ensure no rational outcome other than the status quo.

Pollution questions have dominated environmental debates in Tasmanian fisheries, the FPC proposal and the periodic disappearance of scallops are the major examples of public debates on the use of the resource. Nevertheless future Ministers for Fisheries and their advisers must expect greater interest from a concerned public in the management of this community owned resource.