The Victorian Abalone Fishery Management Plan (VAFMP) includes indices of ecosystem health amongst its suite of trigger reference points for management of the fishery. However, such indices do not currently exist and the VAFMP lists the development of robust environmental sustainability indicators and interactions between abalone and other benthic competitors and predators as habitat and ecology research priorities.

In 2003/04 PIRVic completed a review of literature concerned with ecological interactions between abalone and other reef biota (Jenkins, 2004). There was a paucity of information describing ecological effects of abalone removals and no clear potential performance indicators could be identified from this review. Victoria’s Fisheries and Aquaculture Research and Development Strategy 2005-2010 includes the following needs in relation to Ecosystem Based Fishery Management; “Development of meaningful and practicable ecosystem indicators, reference points and performance measures for key species and fisheries”, and, “Determination of trophic relationships within key commercial and recreational fisheries”, and, “assessment of the ecological impacts of fishing, particularly as identified in management plans”.

This project is required to fully implement the VAFMP and will also assist in satisfying the criteria for fisheries sustainability assessment established by the Department of Environment and Heritage under the Environment Protection & Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Cwlth) (EPBC Act). The present EPBC Act exemption expires in 2008. The proposed work will help fulfil the requirements under the management plan and also the EPBC Act.

As few major disease incidents have occurred in Australian aquaculture, State/Territory departments have relatively little experience in incident management for emergency aquatic animal diseases. No jurisdiction, to date, has conducted a large scale response to eradicate exotic disease in aquaculture and thus expertise in these areas is limited. In the absence of real-life emergency events, simulation exercises provide a practical alternative to expose staff to aspects of emergency management.
The development of the AQUAVETPLAN Control Centre Manual and a Victorian Control Centre Manual will establish new roles and responsibilities for NRE staff, however, implementation success will require extensive training and discussion. Simulation exercises will improve staff awareness and ownership, capacity and communication.
The need for these exercises can be summarised as follows:
1. Both Government and Industries have relatively little experience with real emergencies
2. In Victoria, there is a lack of clarity about the roles and responsibilities of various individuals and departments especially where fisheries are managed separately from terrestrial animal industries
3. The ability to develop effective State/Territory Control Centre Manuals will be enhanced by testing under simulated disease management conditions
4. Lack of experience with emergency management will invariably lead to a delayed response to a disease emergency, and that in turn may lead to a greater spread of disease, loss of Australia's disease free status and severe impacts on export industries.
All simulation exercises are initiated by requests from clients. NRE has requested the proposed exercise and actively supports the proposal. NRE proposed the simulation exercise as a priority to the ABG and the sub-committee of the FHMC who approved the proposal.