New Kimberley marine park could sink coastal tour business say tour operators

Written on the 4 January 2017

Kimberley coastal tour boat operators say new Kimberley marine park sanctuary zones could send them bust.

For 20 years, Tracey Rushford and her partner have been taking Australian and international fishing diehards on the ultimate fishing adventure.

"That whole Kimberley area around the Horizontal Falls Marine Park is an area where we go and take people fishing on our charters," Ms Rushford said.

The remote West Kimberley coastline is best known for the falls where some of the world's largest tides rush through narrow gaps in jagged red cliffs.

But she said the announcement of the Lalang-garram/Horizontal Falls Marine Park by Environment Minister Albert Jacobs in November 2016 threatens the future of her business.

"We were very careful in letting them know which areas were of high importance to us that we base most of our fishing around," Ms Rushford said.

"And now that we look at the zoning map, we feel like we've been robbed of all of our spots because 60 per cent of the areas we designated as important to us have now been zoned as sanctuaries."

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Source: ABC Kimberley, Ben Collins