00:00The MPA behind me here is the La Cache MPA and the differences that we've seen in the years since
00:05it's been close to trawling and dredging are quite remarkable. We've seen a general increase
00:09in the size of prawns and the quality of the prawns and by that I mean there's far more
00:13bigger prawns. The area was once famous for how many small prawns it produced and generally called
00:19beetles and it was always very frustrating for the guys, the crews and the trawlers that fished
00:24there because they would have to tail these beetles into the early hours of the morning,
00:28they were that small and that prolific. However since we've stopped trawling and dredging in there
00:32we now see a far bigger prawn coming out and the area is also far more reliable to fish your
00:39creels
00:39and by that I mean you used to have to move your creels out the way when trawlers came in
00:43otherwise
00:43you would get them towed away whereas now the guys can leave creels in there the whole time and it's
00:47a far more reliable place to make a living. This MPA on this site has been hugely beneficial to this
00:52area because it's all far better prawns now and so we're employing more people generating more
00:58revenue and the marine environment is recovering all at the same time. I think with this MPA we
01:03don't have to do much more other than maybe we want to be careful to regulate the creels actually
01:06so we've regulated the trawl and dredge pretty much out of existence but there's no regulation
01:11on the creels so there's no limit to the amount of creels or the amount of boats that can put
01:14creels in
01:15there and I think in the future we're going to have to look at that if we want to manage
01:18our MPAs properly.
01:19Absolutely
01:19you
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