Selection and declaration of a Fish Habitat Area

Selection

Candidate areas are considered against criteria such as:

  • fisheries and habitat values
  • unique features
  • protecting coastal bioregions.

The overall rating indicates the area's suitability for declaration as a Fish Habitat Area (FHA).

FHAs are generally declared over unallocated state land. They may include national park and reserve tenure, but do not include land tenures such as freehold or leasehold, unless a specific written agreement is reached with the landholder.

The Fish Habitat Area selection, assessment, declaration and review policy (PDF, 1.2MB) details how this process is managed.

Management areas

FHAs are assigned a management level, which can be either:

  • Management A for very strict management
  • Management B where existing or planned use requires a more flexible management approach.

The assessment criteria for a Management A area (e.g. minimum size, diversity of fish habitats and degree of artificial structures and disturbance already present) are more rigorous than a Management B area.

Assessment criteria

Fisheries value:

  • fish species richness
  • presence and abundance of regionally targeted species
  • level of existing fisheries within the area
  • links between the area and external or regional fisheries.

Habitat value:

  • size
  • diversity of habitat types
  • presence of a functioning riparian buffer zone (riverbank)
  • degree of disturbance from in-stream artificial structures (e.g. jetties)
  • water quality
  • existing disturbance from water impoundment structures
  • expected future disturbance
  • compatibility with state and local government plans.

Unique features:

  • any regionally unique fish habitat features present in the area.

Current areas of FHAs in Queensland Coastal Bioregions:

  • Tweed –⁠ Moreton (New South Wales border to Seventeen Seventy) – 115,362 ha
  • Shoalwater Coast (Seventeen Seventy to Mackay) – 326,581 ha
  • Lucinda –⁠ Mackay Coast (Mackay to Lucinda) – 308,690 ha
  • Wet Tropic Coast (Lucinda to Cooktown) – 28,714 ha
  • East Cape York (Cooktown to Cape York) – 278,715 ha
  • West Cape York (Cape York to Aurukun) – 25,573 ha
  • Karumba –⁠ Nassau (Aurukun to Burketown) – 77,075 ha
  • Wellesley (Burketown to ⁠Northern Territory border) – 35,245 ha

Community and stakeholder consultation

Extensive community and stakeholder consultation is undertaken with the proposed declaration of FHAs.

Consultation follows a standardised, transparent process.

FHA proposals generally receive broad community support, given that legal fishing continues and that boundaries to coastal development are clearly defined and established.

Before the declaration, options are considered to accommodate planned structures (e.g. the use of exclusion zones or strategic inclusion of strips of Management B area) within the FHA proposal. These are negotiated with individual stakeholders during the consultation process.

Declaration

Declaration of a FHA requires amendment of the Fisheries (General) Regulation 2019, approved by the Governor in Council.