The New South Wales government is considering shutting commercial abalone harvesting along roughly 350 kilometres of the state's South Coast, from Bundeena near Sydney to Eden by the Victorian border, as one of Australia's most valuable shellfish fisheries slides toward collapse.
A draft proposal seen by the ABC would close the fishery after the state's independent Total Allowable Fishing Committee found a "severe decline" in blacklip abalone, with stocks now rated "depleting or depleted" across the coast. It follows the deepest catch cut in the fishery's history: a 41 per cent reduction in the commercial total allowable catch for 2026-27, from 88 tonnes to 52 tonnes - the lowest since quotas began in the late 1980s.
For the divers who work the reefs, the cut landed hard.
"It's a kick in the face for all the sacrifices that people in the industry have made," said John Smythe, secretary of the Abalone Association of NSW, when the reduction was announced in June.
The Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development frames the decision as unavoidable. "The abalone resource has declined to unsustainable levels, and what we need to do is reduce fishing pressure," said Tara Black, DPIRD's deputy secretary of fisheries and forestry. "We are worried about the sustainability of the resource as well as the sustainability of our commercial fishing industry."
Black attributed the decline to a mix of pressures - decreased export demand from China, climate change, marine heatwaves and the depletion of stocks. Minister for Agriculture and Regional NSW Tara Moriarty struck a similar note in announcing the quota determination: "This is about securing the future of an important resource that supports regional jobs and has deep cultural significance." She added: "At the same time, we recognise environmental conditions and concentrated fishing effort are also contributing to stock decline, and our response reflects that broader reality."
The industry says the numbers no longer add up. Alongside the catch cut, the government has offered a voluntary buyout valued at about $4,200 a share - down from a 2018 valuation of $10,492. Roughly 3,500 shares are held across 41 licence-holders. The Abalone Association voted to reject the offer on 10 July and is pushing for mediation and an upper-house inquiry.
"It has now got to a state where three-quarters of the fishery is probably unrecoverable," said Stephen Bunney, the association's chair. "Many people have just lost absolute confidence in the government to manage this." On the buyout, he was blunt: "They've offered them less than a third of what they've paid to be in these businesses when the fishery was being properly managed. This is people's businesses. This is people's lives."
Running beneath the dispute is a bitter argument over blame. DPIRD's estimate of illegal, unreported and unregulated take - put at 25 to 35 tonnes a year - includes catch taken under Aboriginal native title, a decision that has infuriated South Coast communities.
"They're trying to sell a misled story to say that Aboriginal people have destroyed the industry, and we know who destroyed it," said Wally Stewart, a Yuin man and co-founder of the NSW Aboriginal Fishing Rights group. "They've made us out to be poachers and the ones that destroyed the fishery." He put the community's cultural take far lower: "We'd be lucky to take 2 tonnes a year between the whole mob up and down the South Coast. In the meantime, the commercial divers have been taking around 100 tonnes a year."
A blacklip abalone sells for around $25 to $30 a kilogram at the luxury end of the seafood market. Whether any of it is still commercially harvested along the South Coast may depend on how the closure proposal, the rejected buyout and the calls for an inquiry play out in the months ahead.
