Fishing For Reef Reform

The move by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority last year to expand no-fishing "green" zones from 4% to 33% of the reef won plaudits from scientists and conservationists, but few friends in the fishing industry. Despite a consultation process that attracted 30,000 submissions, fishermen say they were ignored by the authority - which is why they're keenly awaiting a review of its powers, promised by the federal Coalition government in return for Fishing Party preferences in last October's election. Last week Environment Minister Ian Campbell's office would only repeat that the review would be announced "shortly."

Queensland Labor Senator Jan McLucas says critics, among them government members Warren Entsch and agenda-setter Barnaby Joyce, want to strip gbrmpa - which declined to speak to TIME last week ahead of an announcement on the review - of its regulatory powers. Entsch denies wanting the authority disbanded, but says fishers were so misled during the rezoning that a major shake-up is needed "so individuals in the bureaucracy don't go down the same track again." Fishing Party Queensland chairman Kevin Collins hopes some green zones can be changed: "We're painted as rednecks who pillage the reef, but we live here because we love it."