SCRC: PhD: Broodstock conditioning and maturation of sandfish (Holothuria scabra) and optimisation of spawning induction techniques.
Seafood CRC: dried WA seafood products for the Asian market: a pilot study
SCRC: Propagation and sea-based growout of sea cucumber stocks in the Northern Territory
Seafood CRC: Australian seafood compositional profiles portal
INDUSTRY NEEDS
Seafood CRC participants need a common platform that provides easy accessible baseline compositional profiles in suitable formats about their products to enable them to meet their individual needs. The establishment of a secure web based portal will assist industry in identifying and removing barriers to uptake of labeling requirements.
The information needs to be robust, consistent and cover the minimum needs of the Seafood CRC participants for nutritional and contaminant information. Existing information held by individual Seafood CRC participants will be able to be housed in the web portal. Additional testing beyond that in this project would need to funded elsewhere.
Where there is a need to develop new analytical capability this will be done outside this project in the related methods development project.
The project will assist in meeting industry needs for:
- Promoting the public health benefits of seafood consumption more generally.
- Rapid access to credible information to counter negative media claims.
- Assist in addressing current and future technical market challenges.
- Anticipate and quickly respond to market access threats.
NATIONAL ENGAGEMENT
Seafood CRC participants require an expert facilitated process to undertake this activity. The panel fulfils a need of industry to have an entry point into national and international processes undertaken by State and Commonwealth agencies. Without the project the loss of market access share in international markets such as Hong Kong (due to labelling requirements being introduced currently) would be commercially damaging. For example the Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) "Proposal P293 - Nutrition, Health and Related Claims" could be implemented with no seafood industry input or through this project a process of engagement with Commonwealth regulators could be initiated to secure industry outcomes. There is a need for any data capture activities to be compliant with FSANZ technical specifications.
Final report
There is a need for information in the correct format of the nutritional profiles of seafood species to enable seafood producers to meet customer-based and regulatory needs. This project gathered nutritional compositional profiles for proximate composition, fatty acids, water and fat-soluble vitamins, minerals and DNA species confirmation for 22 Australian seafood species.
This information will assist industry to meet domestic and international labeling requirements
All seafood included in the project contained various nutrients with species such as Atlantic Salmon containing consistent high levels of most nutrients such as fatty acids, vitamins and minerals. Another key finding of this project were all products (22 species) were compliant with Australian regulatory standards (where set) for cadmium and lead.
SCRC: PhD: Processing of Sea cucumber viscera for bioactive compounds
SCRC: Population genetic structure of Sea Cucumbers (bêche-de-mer) in Northern Australia
There is a broad need for population discrimination and dispersal information for the long term viability of both the wild harvest fishery and for the successful development of a sustainable sea ranching program. Internationally sea cucumber fisheries have shown themselves to be vulnerable to over fishing if not effectively managed. With little or no information on stock delineation or population dispersal, successful management must rely on very risk adverse management measures. This greatly limits the viability and productivity of the commercial wild harvest fishery. Also continuing long term to manage the stock on the assumption that it is a single entity poses considerable environmental risk if this management assumption is wrong. Understanding the population structure of H. scabra will allow for the development of far more specific management controls and also inform industry in relation to managing fishing programs towards efficienct and sustainable production. Successful management of the wild harvest fishery long term is dependent on identifying the stocks being managed.
Tasmanian Seafoods is the current sea cucumber licensee in the Northern Territory and is committed to
the development of H. scabra aquaculture and sea ranching. In addition to the fisheries management objectives outlined above there is a recognised need to understand the population genetic structure of H.scabra from the currently fished areas in order to inform the planned restocking program as part of the sustainable management of the fishery. This will ensure that the genetic structure of wild populations is taken into account when releasing hatchery produced progeny into the wild populations and is reflected in an appropriate genetic management strategy for hatchery stocks.
Accurate information on dispersal and population isolation will be crucial to the effective management
and development of the industry, and to protect genetic integrity if genetically divergent localised
populations exist along the N.T. coastline.
Final report
Sandfish (Holothuria scabra), a commercially important species of Sea Cucumber, are fished off the northern Australian coast. Elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific region, where they are commonly fished, they have been found to be particularly vulnerable to over-exploitation. Currently, as little is known about their biology and population structure, they are fished off the Northern Territory using conservative methods, by limited access, area restrictions based on an arbitrary line on the water and trigger limits based on historical data. With a view to improving their management and the sustainability of the fishery, a propagation and stock enhancement program is under development. Basic research including knowledge of the population genetic structure is required to enable informed decisions on the sustainable management of existing fisheries and to develop appropriate policies and strategies for the ranching program planned by Tasmanian Seafoods.