EXPLANATORY STATEMENT
Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999
Amendment of the List of Exempt Native Specimens in accordance with Section 303DC
Section 303DB of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (the EPBC Act) provides for the establishment of a list of exempt native specimens. Specimens included in the list are exempt from the trade control provisions that apply to regulated native specimens.
The effect of this instrument is to revoke the conditions to which the inclusion of the following item on the list of exempt native specimens on 25 July 2009 is subject:
- Specimens that are or are derived from fish or invertebrates, other than specimens that belong to species listed under Part 13 of the EPBC Act, taken in the New South Wales Ocean Trap and Line Fishery, as defined in the Fishery Management Strategy for the Ocean Trap and Line Fishery made under the New South Wales Fisheries Management Act 1994.
and impose the following conditions to which the inclusion of the specimens in the list is subject:
- The specimen, or the fish or invertebrate from which it is derived, was taken lawfully in accordance with the restricted entry management regime in force under the New South Wales (NSW) Fisheries Management Act 1994;
- The specimens are included on the list until 31 March 2010;
- NSW Department Industry and Investment (DII) to continue to further analyse information from the scientific observer program in the line fishing sector and fishery-dependent logbooks on grey nurse shark and other protected species interactions, and provide a report to the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts (DEWHA) by 31 December 2009. Should this report identify that Ocean Trap and Line (OTLF) fishers have significant interactions with protected species, DII to commence the development of appropriate management measures to reduce these interactions; and
- From 1 February 2010, no new permits to be issued in the OTLF that allow the targeting of large shark species until a precautionary level of take and associated management measures for those species can be demonstrated and agreed to by DEWHA.
Listing of the specimens described above on the list of exempt native specimens will allow continued export of these specimens until 31 March 2010.
In determining to include the specimens on the list of exempt native specimens regard was had to the Australian Government’s Guidelines for the Ecologically Sustainable Management of Fisheries – 2nd Edition. Those Guidelines establish the criteria for assessment of the ecological sustainability of the relevant fisheries management arrangements.
Subsection 303DC(3) of the EPBC Act provides that before amending the list, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts must consult such other Commonwealth Minister or Ministers and such other Minister or Ministers of each State and self-governing Territory, as the Minister considers appropriate. The Minister may also consult with such other persons and organisations as the Minister considers appropriate. The proposal to amend the list of exempt native specimens was advertised on DEWHA’s website and comment was invited from interested people for a period of 24 days. All comments received were taken into account in the decision to include the fishery on the list of exempt native specimens.
This instrument is a legislative instrument for the purposes of the Legislative Instruments Act 2003.
The instrument commenced on the day after it was registered on the Federal Register of Legislative Instruments.
Unique Identifying Number: EPBC303DC/SFS/2009/37