NRFC Conference, Hobart
This week the National Recreational Fishing Conference was held in Hobart. The theme was “Our Fishing, Our Research, Our Recreational Future” with talks on how citizen science projects by recreational fishers are helping inform and improve both fresh and saltwater fisheries management. Projects featured included artificial reef building and monitoring by OzFish Unlimited as well as WA based Recfishwest’s Reef Vision, Ocean sunfish mapping. OZFish is a particularly interesting case because it is an example of a volunteer-based organisation of recreational fishers focused on protecting and, importantly, restoring fish habitat that is also commercially sponsored, thus giving them a lot more funding, and thus scope, to actively improve the environment. For more information check out the following sites: ozfish.org.au recfishwest.org.au/our-services/research/reef-vision-artificial-reef-monitoring oceansunfish.org