In Australia, the definition, and objectives of partially protected areas (PPAs) in the marine environment are inconsistent across jurisdictions. Some examples of PPAs in Australia include spatial or temporal closures to commercial fishing; ‘special-use’ or ‘multi-use’ zones within marine protected areas; and marine zones where recreational fishing is allowed for specific species.

The implementation of such areas is underpinned by a tension to balance the environmental, economic, and social values of multiple users, and multiple objectives of such areas. In turn, resource managers require systematic knowledge of these diverse user values to consider them in decision making and ensure mutually beneficial outcomes wherever possible.

Within Australia, a wide range and combination of such regulations are applied in both Commonweath and State-managed waters, but there is limited understanding of associated effectiveness and implementation of PPAs relative to their stated goals.

Consultation with key stakeholders in Parks Australia, ABARES, DPIPWE (Tasmania), Parks Victoria, and researchers recently working in Fisheries NSW, highlighted the requirement to create an inventory of current PPAs, and where possible, quantify the multiple benefits (environmental, economic, and social) currently attained through PPAs to provide resource managers with evidence-based tools to implement appropriate marine zoning policies.

Recent analyses have suggested there is no benefit to the introduction of specific types of PPAs along the New South Wales coastline (Turnbull et al. 2021) and we will build on the results of this study to quantitatively understand whether these results are representative for all PPAs in Australian and Commonwealth-managed waters.

This project will review definitions of the main objectives for PPAs across Australia and characterise their implementation across Australia. We will then quantify the extent to which specific types of PPAs achieve their stated goals and use the results to develop evidence-based decision support tools, in conjunction with marine resource managers, to facilitate effective implementation of appropriate marine policies.

Commercial in confidence. To know more about this project please contact FRDC.

Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs) and Individual Transferable Effort (ITE) systems have been introduced to a wide range of Australian fisheries (FRDC 2017-159). Since 1985, forty-six ITQs have been introduced to a range of fisheries and can be found across all jurisdictions in Australia; six ITEs have also been introduced, mainly in prawn trawl fisheries. Such systems allocate shares or portions of a total allowable catch (TAC), or total allowable effort (TAE), between fishers, vessels, communities, or others with an interest in the fishery.

Experience shows that ITQs as generally designed and implemented have not always fully delivered promised outcomes, have had outcomes that were unintended and unwanted, and in some instances have resulted in outcomes that make it difficult for fisheries managers to deliver against other, in many cases non-economic, objectives of fisheries management. In some instances, these unintended and unwanted consequences may also have been inappropriately attributed to the ITQs/ITEs and may more be down to other drivers such as globalisation or changes in stock abundance.

Building on industry and management’s growing interest in improving ITQ-fishery outcomes (SRL Corporatisation Workshop, Melbourne Airport, October 2019) and on the findings of 2017-159, this work will aim to provide evidence-based advice to managers and industry on options to address any performance gaps or unintended and unwanted consequences, and the potential effects of any proposed interventions on the economic, social and environmental outcomes of ITQs as generally implemented in Australian fisheries. The scope of options will include industry-led private sector initiatives, as well as Government-led changes to management.