PROJECT NUMBER
•
2022-036
PROJECT STATUS:
CURRENT
ORGANISATION:
University of Technology Sydney (UTS)
13 results
PROJECT NUMBER
•
2021-075
PROJECT STATUS:
CURRENT
ORGANISATION:
University of Technology Sydney (UTS)
SPECIES
Development of an Indigenous Engagement Strategy for fishing interests with a focus on Commonwealth fisheries
Project number:
2021-024
Project Status:
Current
Budget expenditure:
$393,707.00
Principal Investigator:
Nicholas R. McClean
Organisation:
University of Technology Sydney (UTS)
Project start/end date:
30 Sep 2021
-
29 Jun 2023
Contact:
FRDC
TAGS
From call:
To effectively implement the new legislative requirements and Commonwealth fisheries resource sharing framework, the Commonwealth is seeking to develop an appropriate ‘Indigenous engagement strategy’. This engagement strategy will also be relevant for other Australian jurisdictions. The Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment (DAWE) and the Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA) are key stakeholders in this work and will have significant input. It is also envisaged that the Australian Fisheries Management Forum (AFMF), comprised of the Directors of Fisheries in each jurisdiction and the Commonwealth and its Indigenous subcommittee will be kept abreast and engaged regarding the research outputs.
Circular Economy Opportunities for Fisheries and Aquaculture in Australia
Project number:
2020-078
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure:
$158,000.00
Principal Investigator:
Kate Barclay
Organisation:
University of Technology Sydney (UTS)
Project start/end date:
16 Mar 2021
-
29 Sep 2021
Contact:
FRDC
TAGS
Current resource use challenges sustainability and resilience of industries. Circular value chains allow management of waste losses and maximise resource recovery. A circular economy (CE) mimics the cycles in nature in which there is no waste. Maximum value and utility of products and materials is maintained in CE through a combination of extending product lifetimes, increasing resource use intensity, and end-of-life material recycling. CE includes the idea of regenerative development, i.e. as the earth’s resources cycle as materials through the economy they restore and enhance, rather than deplete, natural capital.
Economic opportunities of circularity are well identified, the World Economic Forum estimates global adoption of CE principles would deliver cost savings of US$1trillion dollars per annum by 2025. A recent UTS:ISF study estimated an Australian CE could be worth AU$2 billion by 2025. However, current knowledge gaps constrain how CE may develop, at what scale it makes sense to close loops, and the strategies, policy mix and incentives needed to promote circularity.
For fisheries and aquaculture, CE adoption addresses waste challenges through the creation of new value chains for fish/shell waste and substitution or recycling plastics and provides co-benefits of resource efficiency, contributions to healthy aquatic eco-systems and creation of added value and new employment. Frameworks to guide ‘CE thinking’ exist e.g. Ellen Macarthur Foundation’s 10R’s and ReSOLVE (see Supplementary Material), but have not been explored, are often omitted in food innovation debates (Pagotto and Halog 2015), and opportunities for implementation within the sector are still emerging (e.g., replacement of fish-feed for abalone with wine production waste or repurposing mussel shells as high-nutrient fertiliser). The need to understand the context, opportunity and benefit of CE innovations and to identify strategic approaches to sectoral circularity at scale are apparent.
1. Develop increased knowledge of how the concept of circular economy relates to fishing and aquaculture, including downstream activities such as post-harvest processing and packaging.
2. Develop increased knowledge of how circular practices being applied in other sectors and industries relate to the fishing and aquaculture sectors and could be adopted by fishing and aquaculture businesses. This includes opportunities for fisheries/aquaculture industries to develop circular linkages with other marine and land based sectors.
3. Identify opportunities that are available and areas for exploration in the short, medium and longer term to progress a circular economy for fisheries and aquaculture.
4. Identify barriers to adopting circularity within the fisheries/aquaculture sector, and known strategies for addressing those barriers.
Final report
ISBN:
978-0-9953662-6-8
Authors:
Rebecca Cunningham
Kate Barclay
Brent Jacobs
Samantha Sharpe and Nicholas McClean
Final Report
•
2022-09-30
•
7.78 MB
2020-078-DLD.pdf
The aim of this project was to understand current circular economy (CE) activities, opportunities and barriers in the fisheries and aquaculture sector in Australia through extensive stakeholder engagement. This research and consultation project has found that there are many CE activities occurring throughout the sector at a range of scales. However, there are significant barriers to overcome to fully realise the opportunities that CE presents. One finding is that the scale of the enterprise plays a role in the ability of any business to absorb elements of the supply chain and optimise the reprocessing of their waste streams.
Those businesses working on developing new and niche products may require additional collaborations to meet their circular goals. There is also a balance to be struck in terms of gathering the appropriate volumes of waste or reuse materials for a business to be economically viable, while ensuring that the transport and storage (e.g. freezing) of those materials does not invalidate a company’s existing carbon footprint.
Project products
Overcoming propagule supply bottlenecks for seaweed production
Project number:
2020-070
Project Status:
Current
Budget expenditure:
$267,706.00
Principal Investigator:
Manoj Kumar
Organisation:
University of Technology Sydney (UTS)
Project start/end date:
14 Oct 2021
-
30 Oct 2022
Contact:
FRDC
If the Australian livestock sector is to reduce its emissions footprint, and achieve its promised carbon neutrality by 2030, handpicked seaweed will not be enough to create a commercial seaweed industry for cattle feed. Achieving a 1% DW supplement of Asparagopsis to reduce the methane output for the NSW dairy herd alone (approximately 15% of Australia's dairy herd and 1% of Australia’s total cattle herd) would require annual production of approximately 8,000 tonnes (dry weight) of Asparagopsis. This would necessitate over 400 hectares of seaweed farms alone. Therefore, there is an urgent need, and significant commercial incentive, to rapidly develop next-generation ways to propagate, farm and process Asparagopsis at scale.
The existing seaweed farming techniques (vegetative fragments and spore/gametes based) create several major bottlenecks to large-scale seaweed farming including: the requirement for large amounts of biomass and fertile sporophyte plants, dependencies on complex life cycles, loss of vigour, and high susceptibility to variety of pest and diseases. Addressing these bottlenecks immediately is a top priority to capitalise upon the significant current commercial interest in seaweed production and the projected demand for this innovative animal feed additive.
We propose that protoplasts-based seedstock generation for seaweed farming to provide a sustainable and scalable solution, resulting in higher yields of quality plantlets production independent of spores and vegetative fragments. Further, developing seaweed protoplasts isolation tools will also aid in vitro genetic manipulation techniques for developing genetically improved strains of seaweed crops.
Developing micropropagation tools for seaweed aquaculture industry will:
1. Make a sizeable contribution to achieving the National Aquaculture Strategy and can support Australia’s economic recovery post-COVID 19.
2. Increase the red meat industry's capability to achieve MLA's commitment to carbon neutrality by 2030.
3. Promote finfish aquaculture by growing seaweeds in integrated multi-trophic aquaculture systems by removing and utilizing excess nutrients.
1. Establish micropropagation techniques for year-round seedstock supply of seaweeds.
2. Demonstrate the commercial practicality of workflow for micropropagation – using seedstock seedlings on ropes followed by grow-out in tanks or ponds.
Final report
Authors:
Manoj Kumar
Peter Ralph
Wayne O’Connor and Michael Dove
Final Report
•
2023-08-31
•
2.42 MB
2020-070-DLD.pdf
Protoplast technology has the potential to revolutionize the seaweed aquaculture industry. The protoplast is a living plant cell without a cell wall, protoplasts offer opportunities for mass propagation and plant regeneration. The remarkable potential of protoplast technology in the seaweed aquaculture industry lies in its ability to generate an astounding number of protoplasts and develop countless plants from mere milligrams of tissue. This project explored ways to isolate protoplast less laboriously and cost-effectively with high seeding efficiency on twine suitable for land-based or open-sea seaweed farming practices. The objectives of this project were:
1.Establish micropropagation tools for year-round seedstock supply of seaweeds.
2.Demonstrate the commercial practicality of workflow for micropropagation.
2.Demonstrate the commercial practicality of workflow for micropropagation.
PROJECT NUMBER
•
2019-060
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED
The Detection of Ciguatera Toxins in NSW Spanish Mackerel
Ciguatera Poisoning (CP) is an illness through the consumption of fish containing naturally occurring toxins, and is considered a high risk for Australian seafood safety. Ciguatoxins (CTXs) are produced by benthic microalgae (Gambierdiscus spp). In Australia, CP cases are related to fish caught in...
ORGANISATION:
University of Technology Sydney (UTS)
SPECIES
PROJECT NUMBER
•
2017-203
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED
Risk from Diarrhetic Shellfish Toxins and Dinophysis to the Australian Shellfish Industry
This study first examined DSTs in spiked and naturally contaminated shellfish - Sydney Rock Oysters (Saccostrea glomerata), Pacific Oysters (Magallana gigas/Crassostrea gigas), Blue Mussels (Mytilus galloprovincialis) and Pipis (Plebidonax deltoides/Donax deltoides), using LC-MS/MS ...
ORGANISATION:
University of Technology Sydney (UTS)
Valuing Victoria's Wild-catch fisheries and aquaculture industries
Project number:
2017-092
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure:
$507,438.75
Principal Investigator:
Kate Barclay
Organisation:
University of Technology Sydney (UTS)
Project start/end date:
28 Feb 2018
-
31 May 2022
Contact:
FRDC
A study which measures the contribution of Victorian wild-catch and aquaculture fisheries to community wellbeing will meet multiple needs:
• Generate detailed, spatially-defined knowledge on the economic and social contributions of fisheries to community wellbeing, and elicit where contributions could be enhanced
• Inform government (local, state) of the importance of fisheries and likely impacts of policy or management decisions on regional and metropolitan communities
• Enhance community engagement and support for fisheries through demonstrating the benefits that flow from professional fishing and aquaculture sectors into communities
Audience: 1) industry representative organizations; 2) government; 3) general public. Currently, very little data exists about the economic and/or social benefits of professional fisheries to communities in Victoria. Existing data only calculate total value of production (beach/farm gate price x volume), and the number of business owners or fisheries employees identified in the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Census. There is no reporting of the multiplier effects in communities of having businesses based there, through service industries or seafood product going into markets. The lack of sophisticated information about the contributions of professional fishing puts the industry as a group at a disadvantage compared to competing resource users which do have such reporting and have been persuasive in negotiations.
Information on social contributions dovetails with economic contributions to build a picture of the overall contributions fisheries make. This can help address the lack of community support for fisheries and consumer influence on the regulatory environment, which has grown to constitute a threat to the continued viability of fisheries. While information generated via this project will not fix the problem – relationships between industry and community must be improved via sustained, strategic engagement – credible data on the social and economic contributions commercial fisheries make to Victoria is useful for boosting the industry’s ‘social license to operate’.
1. Evaluate the economic contribution of commercial wild-catch fisheries and aquaculture to community wellbeing for seven regions of Victoria, including the regional economic impacts such as multiplier effects and employment and contributions to related sectors within regions, building on previous Australian studies.
2. Evaluate the social contributions of commercial wild-catch fisheries and aquaculture to community wellbeing for the same regions, including the social aspects of economic contributions, food provision, health and nutrition, services and infrastructure, interactions with tourism, consumers, and recreational fishers, contributions to community identity and heritage, and knowledge networks, building on previous Australian studies.
3. Build on and refine a methodology to be used for ongoing social and economic evaluations of industry as part of FRDC national framework.
4. Disseminate findings, identifying the social and economic contributions of seafood production to community wellbeing for each study region, highlighting threats to sustainability and viability, as well as opportunities, in a form suitable for engaging: 1) local and state government agencies
and 2) the general public, to raise awareness of the role of professional wild-catch fisheries and aquaculture in Victorian communities.
Final report
ISBN:
978-0-9953662-5-1
Authors:
Abernethy
K.
Barclay
K.
McIlgorm
A.
Gilmour
P.
McClean
N.
Davey
J.
Final Report
•
2020-06-29
•
6.04 MB
2017-092-DLD.pdf
This project provides the first evaluation of the social and economic contributions of wildcatch professional fisheries and aquaculture of Victoria to the communities in which the industries are located and to the entire state. This project was developed in consultation with the Victorian seafood industry who identified the need to communicate the economic value of their industry, inclusive of the economic contribution of businesses supplying or being supplied by seafood producers. In addition, there was no evaluation of the social benefits of the industry to Victoria.
Project products
PROJECT NUMBER
•
2016-805
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED
Future oysters CRC-P: Polymicrobial involvement in OsHV outbreaks (and other diseases)
The principal goal of this research was to provide a detailed characterisation of the oyster microbiome and identify links between specific features of the microbiome and oyster disease and mortality events. The conceptual framework for this work is based upon: (i) increasing...
ORGANISATION:
University of Technology Sydney (UTS)
TAGS
SPECIES
Social and economic evaluation of NSW coastal aquaculture
Project number:
2015-302
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure:
$118,253.00
Principal Investigator:
Kate Barclay
Organisation:
University of Technology Sydney (UTS)
Project start/end date:
30 Jun 2015
-
29 Jun 2016
Contact:
FRDC
The NSW coastal aquaculture industry needs sound information about its economic and social contributions to coastal communities for its continued access to coastal resources to address prevalent negative perceptions. Competing coastal uses such as marine protected areas for conservation purposes and havens for recreational fishing may compromise the viability of aquaculture. For example, in recent submissions to government about commercial shellfish aquaculture leases in Jervis Bay, one submission claimed: “The contribution to the local and regional economy is estimated to be no more than $2 million. Is it worth risking a $700 million tourism industry for this small return?” Responses to this submission relied on evidence from locations outside NSW because currently there is no information available about contributions aquaculture makes to NSW regional communities beyond the value of farm gate sales. It is possible that aquaculture may enhance tourism, as it does in other regions in Australia and overseas, rather than detract from it, but without evidence it is difficult to make the case.
The NSW coastal aquaculture industry and the NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI) staff working on aquaculture have identified a need for a social and economic evaluation of the contributions the industry makes to regional communities. The new Marine Estate resource allocation process is based on assessments of social, economic and ecological values, threats and risks, highlighting absolute necessity of social and economic evaluations. Current trends for social responsibility reporting or certification for marketing also require social assessments. Finally, part of the need here is to improve the industry’s social license to operate. This project will provide baseline information that industry can then use to inform their community engagement strategies. DPI Aquaculture Manager Ian Lyall discovered that this kind of evaluation was planned for FRDC 2014/301 (on wild catch fisheries) and contacted the PI Kate Barclay to see if the same could be done for aquaculture, resulting in this proposal. DPI would benefit from this information for strategic planning for future development of coastal aquaculture.
1. Evaluate the economic contribution of aquaculture production in relevant regions on the NSW coast, including the regional economic impacts such as multiplier effects and employment and contributions to related sectors within regions, building on previous similar studies.
2. Evaluate the social contributions of aquaculture for the same regions, including the participation of families in community organizations, heritage values of seafood production for regions, and the social aspects of economic contributions, building on previous studies.
3. Establish a methodology to be used for ongoing social and economic evaluations as part of government reporting and industry engagement, building on recent and ongoing work in this field.
4. Write a report integrating the social and economic evaluations for each region identifying the role of aquaculture in those communities, and highlighting threats to sustainability and viability, in a form suitable for engaging with local and state government agencies.
Final report
ISBN:
978-0-9953662-1-3
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