The Federal Government will make a decision soon on the listing. But the fishing industry believes it's being unfairly targeted and is pushing governments to focus on other threats, like pollution and boat strikes. Fishing is one of many impacts. We've got speed boat strikes, we've got water quality, we've got disease and a whole range of pollution, plastics, et cetera. Now we've got the runs on the board I believe, and we have taken positive action at a very severe cost to our members to make sure that turtles are conserved.
Environmentalists admit there are other issues.
They say better management of indigenous hunting of green turtles, both in Australia and overseas, is vital. Indigenous people have been accustomed to harvesting green turtles, for instance, sustainably for centuries. But unfortunately, this century, with Western settlement and industrialisation, urbanisation, there have been a whole other suite of threats that have come on board and are reducing green turtle populations, so that the take that indigenous people have been used to is, unfortunately, no longer sustainable. Scientists are finding increasing numbers of turtles with the disease, which often causes death. And that little warty growth there tells us that this turtle got that virus disease I was talking about.