Victoria sets path for sustainable inland fisheries

The Freshwater Fisheries Management Plan, revealed this week in the wake of a draft report released earier this year, maps out broad-sweeping plans to more carefully manage fish, environmental water flows and land to give the recreational fishing community, and traditional owners, a sustainable future.

“This Freshwater Fisheries Management Plan will take inland fishing in Victoria to the next level and help create angling destinations that will attract people from right across Australia,” Victorian Fisheries Authority chief executive Travis Dowling said.

The plan proposes that the government “build investment partnerships” between anglers and the state’s natural resource management agencies to manage the inland fisheries.

“Positive feedback received on the draft plan circulated in recent months has seen more emphasis on developing fisheries close to population centres, chinook salmon, VRFish’s code of conduct, thermal pollution, commercial yabby and eel fishing, threatened fish and the 2018 Victorian Auditor General’s report,” a statement announcing the plan reads.

The latter reference relates to a critical Auditor General’s report handed down earlier this year that was highly critical of the Department of Primary Industries’ management of inland waterways.

The report said the DPI was “not discharging its legislative responsibilities to deliver balanced and sustainable outcomes for freshwater recreational fisheries”, although it softened the blow by saying the department was improving things for recreational anglers.

The new management plan will focus on managing freshwater recreational fisheries in rivers and streams, lakes and impoundments across the state. It will also focus on 15 of Victoria’s most popular species: Murray cod, trout cod, golden perch, Macquarie perch, silver perch, river blackfish, freshwater catfish, Australian bass, estuary perch, brown trout, rainbow trout, Chinook salmon, redfin perch, Murray spiny crayfish and the common yabby.