People Power

It’s a common trope in public policy debate that the environment and commercial or private interests are fundamentally opposed to each other, and therefore the government needs to step in and manage the interests of each.

That’s why a story on the ABC’s Australia Wide came as such a surprise. Faced with a sudden bout of pink snapper death in Cockburn Sound, near Perth, the peak body for recreational fishers, Recfishwest, started their Snapper Guardians program to maintain the stocks of snapper into the future.

Teaming up with scientists who were running a trial with collected, fertilised snapper eggs, Recfishwest set out on a crowdfunding campaign to cover the costs of rearing the fish for an extra couple of months to help them eventually survive in the ocean.

Recfishwest tapped into the local community’s sense of ownership. They met and exceeded their crowdfunding goal. Tackle store owner Tim Barlow is quoted as saying “To see people actually put their money where their mouth was for once… that was fantastic.”

It was only after their successes, as Australia Wide reports, that the WA Government stepped in and provided more funding for the continuation of the program.

This story is instructive because it shows that recreational fisherman — like recreational users of other natural resources — have an interest in protecting the fish stocks they enjoy and are prepared to step up and do just that, but also that local communities are capable of taking responsibility and making something happen, rather than just waiting for government to do it for them.

There are any number of culprits for the steady decline in civic-mindedness and growing social disconnection, but the prime suspects surely have to be the growth in the size of government and a high taxation and regulatory burden that leaves people feeling powerless to contribute to the community. When governments see fit to shut down a girl’s lemonade stand and to send inspectors to the kitchens of churchgoers cooking for a bake sale, it’s unfortunately the case that Snapper Guardians is the exception rather than the rule.