Protest flotilla targets threat to Morton Bay

BY ANDREW PHILLIPS

BRISBANE — Five-hundred people took the water on August 14 to protest the Queensland Labor government's plan to allow the Sun Aqua company to build a multi-million dollar sea cages and fish farms in a pristine part of Morton Bay.

The farms, which will cover an areas four times the size of the Melbourne Cricket Ground, will endanger Moreton Bay's fragile ecosystem and will have a negative impact on the dolphin and dugong populations. It will also threaten the livelihoods of the 800 fishery workers and 220 tourist workers, according to the Wildlife Protection Society of Queensland.

WPSQ's Simon Baltais said that the higher nutrient levels that result from the fish farm will attract marine predators and the dense fish populations in the farm will encourage disease-causing organisms. "The proponents of the sea cages would need to commit $12 million a year to remove their input of nutrients into the bay, although such a commitment has yet to be made", said Baltais. For more information email <wildlifebb@bigpond.com>.

From Green Left Weekly, September 4, 2002.

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From GLW issue 507