Australian Fisheries and Aquaculture Statistics 2017
Australian Fisheries and Aquaculture Statistics 2016
Technical Review for the Commonwealth Policy on Fisheries Bycatch: risk-based approaches, reference points and decisions rules for bycatch and byproduct species
In the past few years, the fishing sector has come under intense scrutiny for the poor management of bycatch, especially threatened, endangered and protected species, and incidentally caught shark species. It has been ten years since the development of the commonwealth and national bycatch policies and circumstances and issues relating to bycatch management have changed considerably from a domestic and international perspective.
Outputs/outcomes from a review of existing Australian bycatch policies will assist in delivering the following:
- streamlining current approaches for the management of bycatch and threatened, endangered and protected species, to reduce regulatory and financial burden to fishers and fisheries managers while increasing the effectiveness of minimising bycatch;
- increase the confidence of consumers that the management of Australian fisheries and production of seafood can be sustainable;
- further advancing claims that Australia has sustainably managed fisheries that link with domestic and international legislative and policy objectives.
Final report
Development of Australian rural research-in-progress database REFER 93/250
Implementation of the National Recreational and Indigenous Fishing Survey
Equitable fisheries management requires an information base on all extractive and non-extractive users of the resource. This has been well implemented for the commercial fishing sector where legislated catch and effort returns are standard practice. However, many inshore fisheries incorporate a significant recreational sector and efforts to collect comprehensive data from this sector have generally been ad hoc, responding to critical management needs rather than an orderly, routine monitoring program.
Although increased research effort has been allocated to recreational fishery data collection, a national assessment of the sector has not recently been attempted. The only previous national survey in Australia was conducted in 1983 by PA Management Consultants. Their results drew widespread attention to the scale and economic impact of recreational fishing in Australia and, although subject to some criticism, are still cited today despite the passage of 15 years.
An urgent need therefore exists to produce relevant and up to date recreational fishery statistics. The adoption of the National Policy by SCFA and MCFFA recognises this need and has provided the impetus for the work of the Steering Committee to date, and for this application to implement the National Survey. The primary focus of the Survey is to collect nationally consistent and comparable data on catch, effort, participation rates, demographics, economic activity, attitudes and awareness covering all aspects of ‘non-commercial’ fishing. These comprehensive datasets will then be available for incorporation into stock assessments of the nation's fisheries and resource allocation decisions.
In addition to the telephone / diary survey of the general population, two other components of the overall Survey are being designed – development of a survey of indigenous communities and of international visiting fishers. While these latter components will have different value to each State and Territory, the combination of recreational, indigenous and international fishing data will provide a comprehensive picture of non-commercial fishing, and allow exhaustive analysis of the extractive sectors of Australia’s fishing resources.