Phuong, something like this sent to your local state member can't hurt the cause!
Firstly congratulations on the success our state Government is reaping, due to its forethought, diligence and hard working staff/members.
I want to bring to your attention the issue of Marine collectors and their impact on the dive tourism in SEQ, but mostly Flinders reef off Moreton Island. I am longtime recreational skin&scuba diver at this reef and a photographer who spends a large amount of my leisure time diving and boating in this area.
This area has been a green zone for almost 10 years, but its size has increased over that time to include more areas of the coral reef it contains(to stop the damage due to anchoring vessels), I have personally seen marine collectors using hooka dive equipment inside this protection zone to the southern end, the northern end and to the west, where a little fishing trawler wreck called the Hustler II is located (on the very edge of the protection zone).
The problem is the area size of the green zone, it allows for fishermen, spearfishermen(some of who dive past 25m deep) and marine collectors to still be on hard reef but just bordering the green zone.
If it was increased by another 300m in its radius(currently it is only a 500m radius) the Cartographic ambiguity of the zone would be alleviated and would make it easier for the Moreton Bay Marine Park officers to prosecute those that flout the zoning laws.
Seeing that to the north, west and south of the Green zone of Flinders reef, is many and larger sized reefs(Hutchinsons shoal, Smith rock, Roberts shoal and Brendan shoal to name just a few on the Admiralty chart) for those Fisherman, Spearfishermen and Marine collectors, would then be obliged to use those other areas. Seems many of those users believe the green zones are a magic fish habitat so they want to fish it! thus proving the need for such zoning as they are finding it tough to take fish in other areas. Ironically they have travelled to this site, over much better fishing grounds anyhow!
Recreational diving is growing rapidly, sites that are bountiful in the spectacular marine life on unique reefs like Flinders reef off Moreton Island- get a reputation as being such and the word spreads fast with twitter/facebook and user specific internal forums-like scuba board. After many years of heavy exploitation by hunters on the reef it is now starting to show a little improvement, fish still are very timid due to that pressure, unlike in well established and enforced zones futher up in the GBRMP where fish behave almost like a pet dog, flinders has that same potential and would increase the dive tourists to the city of Brisbane. The dive operators are trying their best to promote the area, but without photos for pretty fishes and colourful undamaged reef its hard to compete with areas that are better protected like Julian rocks in Byron Bay, NSW.
I would also make mention the lack of protection on species of high value to Marine collectors, species such as Emperor Angelfish, Lionfish, Butterfly fish and Clown triggerfish, these are rarely seen for a common species to this region due to the pressure of having 11 licensees in such a small habitat region- I have personal witnessed licensed operators taking fishes and corals from the Green zones.
We are lucky to live in a part of the world that still has a reasonable bio-diversity, please lets keep it that way under the pressure of population growth.
