The requirement to complete assessments against ESD objectives has increased dramatically during the past
few years. These include the changes at the Commonwealth level incorporated within the new Environment
Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act as part of their implementation of the Oceans Policy. There are
also a variety of requirements within each jurisdiction to meet general government commitments to ESD,
particularly when these are explicitly part of their fisheries and/or environment legislation. Finally, completing
such assessments, and more importantly being able to gain some form of environmental accreditation, is likely
to become increasingly important for market access and leverage in the coming years. Having a consistent and
national approach to deal with these issues, one that minimizes the level of duplication is, therefore, a high
priority for all jurisdictions and industry sectors.
The previous FRDC project 2000/145 developed the conceptual framework and guidelines to enable reports on
the contribution of a fishery to ESD. Because it was the first step in a series of linked activities, the project was
not designed to develop the associated standards and benchmarks to allow systematic assessments of these
reports by third parties.
In the absence of nationally agreed ESD assessment 'standards', each of the stakeholder groups that review
the ESD reports would be forced into a position of having to develop and apply their own set of standards. This
could lead to significantly different outcomes depending upon which agency conducts the review, and potentially
who within the “auditing agency” reviews the report. Such a situation is likely to result in a high level of
uncertainty.
There is also a need to begin developing the tools to assess the impact of managment actions across all
aspects of ESD in an integrated fashion. This task will require an examiniation of the types of linkages that
need to be made and the mathematical/programming tools that will be appropriate to assess the effects of
different management options.
The ESD Reference Group (which includes representatives of all major stakeholders) met in November 2001
and agreed that there was a requirement to develop a set of projects to achieve the transition from ESD
Reporting to Assessment. As an initial step, a project application (2002/086) was submitted on behalf of the
project team to provide the resources to scope out and develop the activities required. These were to generate:
1. Current Best Practice Manual - Consolidate from a variety of sources the current “Best Practise” options for
the objectives, performance measures, indicators and management responses needed for ESD assessments.
2. Tools to Integrate across the components of ESD - This will develop the methods to enable the integration
and assessment of possible management responses across all the elements of ESD – (economic, social and
ecological dimensions)
3. Test Bed to Examine Options - Test and develop the options to assist with the selection of suitable
objectives, indicators, and management responses and particularly what combinations are appropriate.
The ESD project team met in February 2002 and confirmed that the activities required were best completed as
parts of one scoping project that would run from April 2002 – November 2002 from which a series of linked
projects would be developed. These proposed activities are summarised below.
· Given the strong need by most jurisdictions (and other external parties) to have some guidance on what is
acceptable performance with regards to objectives, indicators etc for fisheries as soon as possible, this scoping
project would produce the first edition of the “Best Practice” report/manual by November 2002 based on
information currently available. It is envisaged that a follow up project would be submitted that would update
this manual at 6-12 month intervals.
· A series of workshops and discussions would be held to gain an understanding of the inter-connectedness
across the elements of ESD (social, economic and ecological) and initiate an examination of the potential
methods/models to enable their integration and predict flow-on effects. It is envisaged that this first stage would
concentrate on examinations within a single fishery. It was recognised, however, that there will be a need to
expand the scope of these assessments to include “across fisheries” and ultimately “across industries” over the
next 2 –5 years. The outcomes of the preliminary work would be used to produce a longer term, more
comprehensive project application for the December 2002 round.
· Finally, the gaps and level of completeness of the elements contained within the first edition of the “Best
Practice” manual and the initial discussions and preliminary model testing of the methods for integration would
provide the information needed to develop the application for the “Options Test-Bed” project by December 2002.
The ESD Reference group would provide input on progress and the content of the new applications at meetings
scheduled for June and November 2002 respectively.

The current ESD case studies project has identified multi-sector fisheries, often with limited data, as posing one of the most difficult areas for assessment of stock status. These fisheries are typically fished by a small number of commercial operators taking small catches of a diverse range of species. Comprehensive commercial databases are generally lacking, and recreational catches are poorly known. Such stocks are often significantly impacted by environmental variation both man made and natural.

There is an urgent need for researchers and managers responsible for future fisheries ESD reporting and assessment to examine techniques for data gathering (both catch/effort and biological) and assessment for these types of fisheries. The historical approach of dealing with the data and assessments of fisheries from a single sector perspective is no longer compatible with ESD requirements.

This ASFB workshop will bring scientists, managers, and other stakeholders together to investigate innovative ways of providing reliable assessments of the stocks and sustainable harvest levels for our coastal, estuarine, and inland fish resources.