BLOG: Pew, Hugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble and Grub

THOSE of us of a certain age will remember the UK kid's TV programme Trumpton, with its crazy array of characters including Pew, Hugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble and Grub.

Although only running for 13 episodes these names stuck in the minds of a generation. Now some forty years later, those of us who still love our fishing every bit as much as we did in our youth have an altogether more sinister reason for checking out what Mr Pew and his gang are up to.

International environmental lobby groups have increased their activity significantly in Australia in recent years and unlike many of the mainstream groups such as WWF and Greenpeace, some of the big players don't see any role for recreational fishing in the management and protection of the marine environment. We should be particularly concerned about the large, US-based Pew Charitable Trust that, as part of its International Global Ocean Legacy campaign, is active worldwide in promoting large "no take" sanctuary areas.

Pew's strategy for these sanctuary areas starts with the premise that all fishing is bad and therefore there should be a complete ban on all types of fishing in these areas. No distinction is made between the impact of anglers and that of the pros. The Pew Charitable Trust actively supports and funds "pseudo research" in Australia, mainly through the University of Queensland's Ecology Centre. The Pew Trust has funded modelling "studies" that they claim clearly demonstrated that 50 per cent of the proposed South West Marine Park in Commonwealth waters should be sanctuary areas in order to provide the required level of protection. In publicising this study through the media and to MPs, what the Pew Trust fails to mention is that the 50 per cent sanctuary area was an input to their modelling, not an output – in other words, the model was designed to produce a pre-determined result of 50 per cent. Not so much research and more like a propaganda exercise...

Luckily, it seems as if the Federal government has finally rumbled Pew's game and is set to snub their crude advances to close off both the Coral Sea and huge tracts of the Australian South-West to angling.

And quite right too as Australia has achieved substantial marine environmental conservation to date via inclusion of 10 per cent of its EEZ in MPAs. Together with fisheries management arrangements throughout that effectively meet IUCN Categories IV, V, VI, this means that Australia is likely to have already fulfilled its international marine conservation obligations under the Jakarta Mandate.

Is it because of Pew that relationships between recreational fishing and environmental groups, who ought to be largely on the same side, are so poor? Over here in the UK, and to an extent in the US, there are dynamic partnerships between green groups and anglers all striving to protect and improve the aquatic environment. I've just spent several weeks working with the London Wildlife Trust, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, The Angling Trust and a host of community based organisations in a coalition to press forward the case for cleaning up the tidal Thames in London. Angling groups were front and centre in much of the work of the Thames Tunnel Now group which can claim to represent the interests of over 5 million Brits. See here for more info: http://www.wildlondon.org.uk/News/launch-of-thames-tunnel-now.

The full coalition makes for a pretty impressive roll call and comprises the Angling Trust, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, WWF-UK, London Wildlife Trust, Inland Waterways Association, Thames 21, River Thames Society, Salmon & Trout Association, Thames Anglers Conservancy, Royal Yachting Association, Mammal Society, Marine Conservation Society, National Association of Boat Owners, Thames Rivers Restoration Trust, Barge Association; and they fully expect many more organisations to join in the coming days and weeks.

Can anyone at the moment see any prospect of a broad coalition of mainstream environmental groups and angling organisations working together in Australia for common aims? I know that a few tentative moves have been made, but as long as Pew's poisonous tentacles are queering the pitch I can't see a great deal of progress being made. This is a great shame because the majority of those who care about the environment are not extremists and share the same concerns as the majority of thinking anglers, whether in Australia or anywhere else on this planet of ours.