Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2013L01314:reg:2013:p15
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2013L01314
Segment Type: reg
Provision Reference: reg 2013 (pt 15/24)
Character Range: 59194–62136

to support the recovery of the Australian sea lion include provisions under both Commonwealth and state government legislation. Arrangements in place at the time of making this recovery plan are outlined below.

9.1 National level

The Australian sea lion is protected under the EPBC Act, as such, it is an offence to kill, injure, take, trade, keep or move any individual without a permit in Commonwealth waters. In addition, all listed threatened species are considered matters of national environmental significance (MNES) and any actions that are likely to have a significant impact on a MNES must be referred to the minister responsible for the environment for assessment and approval.

The environmental performance of Commonwealth, state and the Northern Territory-managed wild harvest fisheries is assessed under the EPBC Act. The EPBC Act requires that:
   * all Commonwealth-managed and state wild capture marine fisheries with an export component be assessed to ensure they are being managed in an ecologically sustainable way
   * all Commonwealth-managed fisheries are also assessed to determine the impact of actions taken under a fishery management plan on matters of national environmental significance
   * all Commonwealth-managed fisheries and any state-managed fisheries that operate in Commonwealth waters must also be assessed to determine the impacts of fishing operations on cetaceans; listed threatened species and ecological communities; migratory species and listed marine species under the EPBC Act.

The assessments consider the impacts of the relevant fishery on target and non-target species caught and the impacts of fishing activities on the broader marine environment.

As part of this fisheries assessment process, the Commonwealth has developed a set of regulations that minimise Australian sea lion by-catch in the SESSF. The Australian Sea Lion Management Strategy
(AFMA, 2010) was released in June 2010 and included measures such as formal spatial closures covering 6300 square kilometres of the SESSF in high risk areas around colonies; trigger levels for additional closures; increased observer coverage; trials of modified fishing gear and a trial of hook fishing methods to assess the impact of a large scale shift from gillnets to hooks in South Australia.

These measures were strengthened in April 2011 (AFMA, 2011) to include additional spatial closures
around a further 31 colonies, bringing the total level of closures to 18 500 square kilometres. In addition,
more precautionary trigger limits were put in place and independent observer coverage was increased to
100 per cent for all gillnet fishing off South Australia and 10 per cent for gillnet fishing elsewhere in the fishery. Under the April 2011 arrangements, if the trigger limits are reached in any of the seven management zones then that zone would be closed for a full Australian sea lion breeding cycle (18 months). A cumulative