Let's be fair to the Great Barrier Reef's fisheries-dependent families, too

When timber-getting was closed down for environmental reasons on Fraser Island, compensation of $37 million was provided. Commercial fishers should not be discriminated against because their activities occur on water rather than land.

Personally, we feel sad that the GBRMPA has taken to denying fishers their rights and in doing so attacking the credibility of our research. There have been public statements that our research is "unbalanced" because it has been "directed by the Queensland Seafood Industry Association".

What we find ironic is that one of us has been paid for more than two decades to provide most of GBRMPA's economic research. Using their logic, presumably GBRMPA, which has published this past work with pride, must think that it too was unbalanced. We are pleased, though, that a public apology for this slight on our professional ethics has been issued by GBRMPA.

But it does not stop there. We are disappointed to read a statement by Australian Democrats leader Andrew Bartlett that our research is "a slap-up job" which is flawed and inaccurate. Had he read the report in full the very "flaws" he believes he has found are dealt with in detail.

It is a sad day when poorly informed politicians attack the ethics and professionalism of researchers, particularly those from a party who, in their own words, champion the cause of academic freedom.

Finally, there is the question of the new zoning maps. GBRMPA is now stating it has changed the no-fishing areas and placed them where fishing does not occur. We wonder why, if it was this simple, it was not done right in the first place. These new maps have been put together by GBRMPA behind closed doors - an approach to natural resource management as outdated as the hula-hoop.

The reason the seafood industry had to go to a university to undertake this economic assessment was that GBRMPA, having commissioned economic research to complement its new zoning, has - for reasons that are not at all clear - not released that research.

The bottom line is that a few hundred family businesses and the communities that depend upon them deserve better treatment than they are receiving, and that means a fair compensation and adjustment package.