Coral fishery

Fishery symbol

• D: Coral fishery

Management

• Harvest strategy
• Working group

Operating area

• Area of the D coral fishery

Quota

The fishery is managed through total allowable catch, divided into 2 buckets of individual transferrable quota (ITQs) units allocated to each licence:

• specialty coral (DS) and other coral
• seven specialty species that have their own ITQs.

Specialty coral

Within the specialty coral (DS) bucket, each species or family allowed also has a prescribed commercial catch limit.

If taking specialty coral, fishers must also hold a DS quota to allow for the 25% trimming factor for substrate.

Licences

To operate in the fishery, you need a:

• primary commercial fishing licence with a D fishery symbol which allows
• up to 3 divers to operate under a licence at any one time
• commercial fisher licence for the person in charge of fishing activities.

A1 symbols and D symbols can be fished together on the same fishing trip, provided that both symbols are on the same primary commercial fishing licence.

Reporting and monitoring

Commercial fishers must:

• report trip and catch notices
• pre-trip notice
• amending notice
• prior notice
• weight notice
• emergency notice
• complete daily logbooks
• keep sale dockets
• have vessel tracking on their boats
• comply with state marine park and Great Barrier Reef Marine Park zoning rules.

Equipment

• One primary boat.
• One tender boat only.

Target species

• Hard corals
• Soft corals
• Sea anemones
• Live rock (dead coral skeletons with algae and other organisms living on them)
• Coral rubble (coarsely broken up coral fragments)
• Coral sand (finely ground-up particles of coral skeleton)

Size or take limits

• Coral cannot be trimmed at sea and must be landed as collected.
• Coral cannot be returned to the water once it is removed.
• Coral sand:
• only take as incidental catch
• must not target in marine park waters.