I had to be a little amused by the opening to another whining article in the Cairns Post today:
Mad keen fisherman Wayne Bayne has an analogy he likes to use when he talks about the restrictions posed on his favourite pastime.
He likens it to that other great recreational pursuit, golf.
“I’ve never ever in my life been on to a golf course”, he said.
“But if golf courses are 18 holes and all of a sudden you took 8 holes away from them, you wouldn’t get as many people playing, would you.”
Mr Bayne, the Far North Queensland chairman of Marine Queensland, said the tradition of enjoying the great outdoors was increasingly under attack from bureaucrats who were – unintentionally – threatening to turn many northeners into obese city dwellers.
“By restricting people’s use of an area without justification for doing it is reducing the enjoyment people have out of it,” Mr Bayne said.
“The marine industry has taken a hit out of that when they rezoned the Great Barrier Reef in 2004.”
Yes, fishing is such great exercise… Sitting on your arse in a boat while drinking beer and reeling in for thirty seconds every now and again is a real aerobic feat! Perhaps more fisherman should walk eighteen holes of golf every now and again.
And then there’s his analogy – which I think is inaccurate. It’s more like telling golfers they can’t hit balls in public playing fields. Guess what, that’s already in place and really hasn’t hurt much. And we should also note that many golf courses in the north haven’t done away with eight holes, they’ve done away with nine.
Justification? See the TED Talk a couple of posts down the page, which illustrates why we so desperately need marine reserves. There’s still plenty of Reef open to recreational fishermen. Let’s increase the green zones a bit further.
