Commercial fishing is removing at least 2.2 million kilograms of fish and other sea creatures from Australian marine parks using controversial practices such as bottom trawling and longlining, figures obtained under freedom of information reveal.
The figures revealing the extent of fishing in Commonwealth protected waters from 2018-19 to 2024-25 come as the federal government has opened the statutory 10-year review of the marine park system, and proposed vast new areas around Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island for the highest level of protection with no fishing.
Environment Minister Murray Watt said the additions would bring an additional 671,500 square kilometres of Australia’s territorial waters under high protection, and mean the government reached its commitment to highly protect 30 per cent of Australian ocean well ahead of its 2030 target.
“Norfolk and Lord Howe marine parks are ecologically significant, supporting a mix of temperate and tropical marine habitats, and are important biodiversity corridors in the south-west Pacific for migratory seabirds, cetaceans, fish and sharks,” Watt said.
The FOI figures obtained by Greenpeace, which is campaigning for an end to “industrial fishing practices” in marine parks, cover 18 Commonwealth fisheries that are partially or entirely within the reserves.
There are 60 Commonwealth marine parks, with zoning ranging from sanctuaries or national parks where fishing is not allowed, to several mixed use zones that allow for activities such as fishing, oil and gas exploration and drilling, and offshore wind. However, not all parks zoned for fishing have active fisheries.
Commonwealth waters start 5.5 kilometres offshore, and the government’s review and the FOI figures do not cover state-run marine parks closer to shore.
Ten Commonwealth marine parks have special trawl zones that allow bottom trawling, a controversial practice with a high level of bycatch that can grind up the sea floor and was highlighted in David Attenborough’s film Ocean last year. Longlining, another fishing practice with a high level of bycatch, is also allowed in a number of Commonwealth marine parks including in habitat protection zones.
Greenpeace senior campaigner Elle Lawless said bottom trawling involved dragging heavy weighted nets along the sea floor, which crushed ecosystems such as coral or sea-grass meadows and scooping up everything in its path, not just the target species.
“If we want to ensure thriving ocean life, that shouldn’t be allowed, and especially not in marine parks which are designed to protect ocean life,” Lawless said. “You wouldn’t bulldoze a national park, so why is trawling allowed in marine parks?”
Adele Pedder, the protected areas manager with the Australian Marine Conservation Society, said a review of the Commonwealth marine parks off Victoria and Tasmania was completed in February 2025, resulting in the cessation or heavy restriction of most industrial activities. The conservation society wants that level of protection for all marine parks around the country, and to increase the number of marine sanctuaries.
“We still allow industrial activities inside marine parks, and Australians will be shocked to know that – such activities include seafloor trawling, also known as bottom trawling, as well as oil and gas activities like seismic testing,” Pedder said.
Pedder welcomed the government’s plan of a massive increase in protected areas around Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island, but said that would not mean that Australia had delivered its goal to protect 30 per cent of its ocean by 2030. The scientific principle that marine sanctuaries needed to be “comprehensive, adequate and representative” wouldn’t be achieved given only 9 per cent of mainland waters were protected, she said. In the Temperate East zone off south-east Queensland and NSW, only 1.1 per cent of offshore waters were protected.
Watt said the Albanese government was committed to adding further protections around the broader network informed by science and stakeholder views. But all states and territories had agreed to the 30 per cent by 2030 target, and achieving it fully required collective action. Australia had “some of the best-managed fisheries in the world”, which supported regional jobs and national food security, he said.
The FOI documents reveal the marine parks with the biggest catch by weight are those in the South-west network, including areas off the coast of Western Australia and South Australia, where 54 vessels caught an average of 887,160 kilograms of seafood and bycatch annually. The target species were larger fish, including western and southern bluefin tuna, and billfish.
The next biggest area is the Coral Sea, to the east of the Great Barrier Reef, which includes a large special purpose trawl zone. The 41 vessels operating here accounted for 808,840 kilograms of seafood and bycatch, of which 789,500 kilograms was from an eastern tuna and billfish fishery.
The Temperate East marine parks from south-east Queensland, NSW, Norfolk Island and Lord Howe Islands accounted for 435,490 kilograms of tuna and small pelagic fish. The North and North-west zones averaged 63,940 kilograms of mostly prawns.
When the figures are combined, vessels caught 2,195,000 kilograms of seafood and bycatch from Commonwealth marine parks annually. The figures don’t include additional fishing in state marine parks.
“It’s actually really shocking to think how much marine life is being sucked out of our marine parks – we’re expecting these special places to be protected, and yet there are industrial activities happening within them,” Lawless said. “We also don’t know how much of that catch is bycatch.”
Northern Prawn Industry Association chief executive Annie Jarrett said she hoped the review of marine parks would not result in a loss of fishing access. Calls for a blanket ban on bottom trawl fishing in marine parks were unwarranted, she said.
“Shutting down fisheries in the name of ‘environmental protection’ reduces availability of Australian seafood to consumers,” Jarrett said. “Bottom trawl fisheries can be and many are sustainable – Australia’s ‘best practice’ fisheries should not be lumped in with the ‘worst-case scenarios’ depicted in Ocean.”
The Northern Prawn Fishery had been certified sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council since 2012, she said. The trawling was on soft muddy substrate and just 29 boats fished for half the year on less than 10 per cent of the 770,000 square kilometres in the fishery.
Steph Martin, fisheries outreach manager at the stewardship council, said fisheries could be certified if they demonstrated evidence of minimal impact, regardless of the fishing method they used.
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Caitlin Fitzsimmons is the environment and climate reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald. She was previously the social affairs reporter and the Money editor.Connect via email.From our partners
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