Prawn fishermen in northern Queensland say they don’t know how their industry is going to survive.

Despite promising conditions like early rains, catches around Mackay have been less than half of what’s expected in an average year.

Danny Pope has been a fishermen for 44 years.

He has caught less than half the banana prawns he’d usually catch this time of year.

Danny Pope says they only get paid $5 per kilo for the produce they are currently catching and it’s getting pointless to keep operating.

“We are finding that the quality of the prawn is a smaller count prawn rather than then bigger count prawn, so we would expect normally to be catching half and half. But at the moment it’s basically 99 per cent in the smaller grades.”

He thinks prices in supermarkets haven’t decreased and somebody in the chain is taking too much without paying fishermen their share.

“The industry is at a point where if the price doesn’t firm up, there will be no industry. We cannot keep going on the prices we are getting.”

Part of the problem, he feels, is a lack of competition among marketers.

“Since the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority restructure within the green zones, and buy outs, taking out not only boats but marketers, we have less competition.”

Mackay wholesaler and exporter David Caracciolo agrees the industry is struggling to survive, but doesn’t think that prawn fishers earn less because middlemen take too much.

He says the problem is the high dollar, increasing operation costs, cheap imports, and an ageing work force.

“I personally don’t think the fishing industry is going to survive unless something happens very soon.”

The Chairman of the Seafood Importers Association of Australasia Norman Grant says it’s true that the industry is doing it tough, but says imports are definitely not to blame.

“Prawn imports have declined substantially since 2007. They are down 30 or 40 per cent since 2007, so there is certainly no increase in prawn imports.”

He says the global price for prawns has decreased due to prawn farming around the world.

And he says people aren’t willing to pay high prices for seafood anymore.

Story on ABC website: https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2011-04-07/tough-times-for-prawn-fishermen/6187468

Longer audio version on ABC Rural: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-04-07/fishermen-and-wholesalers-have-a-tough-time-making/6187486

PLAY VIDEO:

Audio Script:

Cyclone Yasi hasn’t just wrought havoc on land in northern Queensland.

The destructive winds of the category five system have destroyed coral and marine life in the Great Barrier Reef and disturbed fish stocks.

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority is assessing the state of the reef, but reef line fishermen along the Queensland coast are already feeling the impact. They say the fish have vanished.

Nicky Redl reports from the Queensland town of Bowen.

NICKY REDL: The Bowen Marina between Mackay and Townsville is full of fishing boats. Nobody is heading to sea. The only work to be done is maintenance.

Reef line fishermen catch fish like coral trout by hand, and sell them alive to local and overseas markets. But since the cyclone, their usual catch is nowhere to be found.

On his last trip, Wayne Teakel didn’t even catch enough to cover fuel costs.

WAYNE TEAKEL: Our boat was one of the first boats to head out after the cyclone, and we’ve done two-and-a-half days for one coral trout, and 20 red throat emperor, and three stripies, which, we used 700 liters of diesel, outboard fuel, ice, bait, so you can tell we are definitely going backwards fast.

NICKY REDL: Further south has been less affected, but not everyone can travel the distance.

JAMIE LAIRD: This boat is too small to relocate. We haven’t got the fuel capacity to run out of Mackay some of the bigger boats. And the majority of the reef is damaged, basically from Cairns to Mackay, so we can’t really go anywhere.

All my savings, life savings, went into this boat so I could become a fisherman, and basically, the cyclone has taken it all away from us.

NICKY REDL: The state government has acknowledged fishermen have been affected, but says they don’t qualify for extra assistance. That means that fishermen like Jamie Laird can’t apply for loans or grants like banana or cane growers hit by cyclone Yasi, because fishermen aren’t classified as primary producers.

He says the wage subsidies they get from Centrelink are not enough to live on.

JAMIE LAIRD: You know, we are husband and wife with three children. They have offered us 400 dollars a fortnight to survive on. Like that, that wouldn’t pay your grocery bill.

I was the main money earner. My wife was at home looking after the kids. Now it’s had to change around, she’s had to go back to work, and I’m actually daddy daycare at the moment.

There is just no money coming in at all for anyone.

NICKY REDL: Seafood wholesaler Brett Bauer already had to close his business, because there is nothing to sell.

BRETT BOWER: We only sell local product, we don’t sell any imported stuff or anything, so with no catches with the boats, we’ve had nothing to do, I’ve had to lay off just about all my staff bar two people.

NICKY REDL: Some are lucky enough to have boats big enough to relocate further south, but that means a huge hike in fuel costs.

Boat owner Tanya Giles.

TANYA GILES: You know, we’ve got further distances to get to the reef, as well as the fact that we had to get down there in the first place.

You know, we’re lucky enough to have been quite welcomed by the Mackay community and the Mackay harbor, but it just means that the traveling distances for us compared to what we are used to are phenomenal. So our fuel bill has doubled.

NICKY REDL: And with all the extra boats heading south, the industry is worried that it’s only a matter of time until that area is overfished, while those who can’t relocate are left to wonder why they are being treated differently than other producers. Nicky Redl, ABC Rural, Bowen.

Backstory: I was working as an ABC Rural Reporter in Queensland when cyclone Yasi hit, and we only had audio recorders, not video cameras. I used my small automatic Canon camera with video function on a tripod for the footage, and recorded the audio separately on a Marantz recorder, later syncing audio and video in Premiere. I hadn’t been trained in Premier either at that point, so it was a long night in the studio. It was worth it, though, as the footage and audio were ultimately broadcast on state-wide and national radio and TV, and the plight of fishermen in the region received more widespread attention. The government subsequently offered fishermen the financial assistance it had previously denied them on the grounds that they were not primary producers.

Video broadcast on ABC national television channel News 24, and audio on ABC Radio National.

Online news story on the ABC website: https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2011-03-02/one-month-on—still-no-catch/6189192

Audio version on ABC Rural: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-03-02/reef-line-fishermen-along-the-qld-coast-say-reef/6189204