Now, though, many in the 26-boat fleet said they are in danger of going out of business as the federal government, trying to restore species it says have been overfished, has enacted increasingly strict regulations over the past decade that have reduced catches.
And with the seas increasingly depleted by overfishing, much of the world is turning to China's land-based fish farms to meet growing demand.
This natural disaster only serves to underline how vulnerable our seabirds are to other threats, such as the oil spills, and increasingly to two more dangers – climate change, and overfishing.
In a world where the main concern about fish is overfishing, and the main demand on fish is to feed an increasingly hungry human-dominated world, it may see odd to complain about abundance.
While it is increasingly under threat due to climate change, oil spills, overfishing, dredging and development (thanks, humans), a new installation goes to show why the World Heritage site needs our conservation.
Overfishing also threatens the sector, although fish farming especially along the western coast has been increasingly developed as an alternative.
In an increasingly prosperous Asia, the market for the soup has grown drastically, causing overfishing around the globe.
The big environmental issues are increasingly in the southern hemisphere, be it Indonesian or Amazonian deforestation, Chinese coal plants or overfishing in the Indian and Pacific Ocean".
But increasingly, divers and snorkelers are swimming over bleached hunks of coral devastated by shore runoff or overfishing.
Arguably, this isolation prevents overfishing.
