Our Mission
To protect and restore fish habitat and support recreational fishers in these actions.
Protecting and restoring Australia’s fishing habitats now and for future generations
OzFish is Australia’s only fishing conservation charity – dedicated to empowering and supporting recreational anglers and their communities to take control of the health of their rivers, lakes and estuaries.
We operate across the country and through our network of members and volunteers, organised into local Chapters. OzFish has delivered dozens of impactful habitat restoration projects which benefit fish.
By restoring habitat, we are improving the ecosystem of Australia’s waterways and providing healthy environments for native fish species to not only survive but thrive. This helps to ensure that, for years to come, Aussies will continue to enjoy their favourite fishing spots.
We believe the most complex and seemingly impossible challenges can be solved when people come together and get to work. We were founded by anglers, waterway stewards and ocean lovers who saw that the waterways in Australia we loved were being degraded, and not much was being done about it.
Committed to projects that provide tangible and sustainable results.
We achieve this by bringing people and science together – engaging volunteer members and local communities, as well as working with partner organisations at a state and national level, to support our projects.
Our work includes; making local fishing grounds healthier, vibrant and more productive, sharing habitat restoration knowledge, research projects with leading universities, community engagement workshops, school education programs, and partnering with traditional owners and their communities.
Across Australia, we deliver both inland and coastal habitat restoration projects – operating in salt and freshwater.
At the heart of our work are passionate recreational anglers who drive projects from the ground up. OzFish is responsible for the development and delivery of the largest community-led seagrass restoration project in Australia. We are leading the way in establishing the largest seagrass restoration projects on both the east and west coasts. These are projects that everybody can get involved in to support the re-establishment of healthy marine environments and improve our fishery.
Our project work includes:
- resnagging
- riverbank planting and bank stabilisation
- fish ways
- bushfire, drought and flood recovery initiatives, including emergency fish relocations
- monitoring river health and educating future generations.
- waterway cleanups and sustainable fish education programs
- shellfish reef restoration and shell recycling
- seagrass restoration
- mangrove and saltmarsh restoration
- habitat mapping
- kelp restoration
- citizen science including mapping, water quality testing, water bug monitoring
- wetland restoration