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North Eastern Region

Fact Sheet [PDF]

Description

Employment within the fishing sector is heavily concentrated in the commercial sector, with scattered pockets of aquaculture activity, fish wholesaling and processing operating in coastal towns with strong linkages to commercial fishing activities.

Major commercial fisheries in the Region include: coral reef line fisheries for coral trout (Plectropomus spp.) and emperors (Lethrinidae); prawn trawl fisheries; inshore and estuarine fisheries for crabs and tropical finfish utilising trap, line, net and trawl methods; and offshore pelagic longlining for tuna and billfish. All are Queensland fisheries except the Australian Government managed pelagic longlining.

The total commercial fisheries production for the Region in 2002 was estimated at 15,600 t with a GVP of $165m.

 

 

Net fishing (J Lauritz, supplied by Ecofish)

Socio-economic characteristics

The North Eastern Region stretches from the Cape York Peninsula, and expands along the coastline of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) to the northern most tip of the Wide Bay - Burnett Mary area, encompassing most of the sugar-belt area of Queensland and the popular tourist areas of Whitsunday and Port Douglas.

The Region comprises around 66 medium to large coastal towns and numerous smaller coastal settlements in the coastal strip between Yeppoon and Sarina. The smaller coastal towns and less densely populated hinterlands on the backdoor of the larger centres reflect the Region's diverse industrial base: tourism-driven retail and accommodation, manufacturing and light agriculture on the coastal strip, and in the hinterlands some mining activity and heavy agriculture mainly in the form of beef-cattle and sugar cane.

Marine tourism is an important activity, and employment in all forms of marine-related activity is apparent along the Region's coastline, particularly concentrated in the area from the Whitsunday Islands to Cairns.

The Region has a population of approximately 441,300 of whom 90% reside in coastal towns, including the large administrative centres of Townsville-Thuringowa, Cairns-Northern Beaches, Mackay, Gladstone, Yeppoon, Innisfail and Bowen. Increasing population growth between 1996 and 2001 occurred around the large centres of Cairns and Townsville and in the Miriam Vale area where employment within the fishing sector is substantially higher.

Overall, the Region is characterised by a younger age structure with a lower elderly dependency, and higher incidence of socio-economic disadvantage. It also has a lower annual population growth rate compared with coastal Australia as a whole, and a relatively larger proportion of Indigenous people. Due to the prevalence of male labour intensive industries the population has a higher proportion of males than females. Areas where employment is concentrated in either natural resource-based industries or manufacturing show low levels of employment diversification.

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