There are numerous Australian jurisdictions that have faced and are currently facing management challenges with Snapper stocks in decline. It proposed that a national Snapper workshop is needed to bring together from each jurisdiction fisheries managers, scientists and key stakeholders from the commercial and recreational fishing sectors to:

(1) Communicate findings on Snapper research, gain an insight into the challenges, successes and learnings from management arrangements implemented in each jurisdiction.
(2) Identify a national approach to collaborate and manage a Snapper stock that crosses jurisdictional boundaries
(3) Develop a set of national R&D priorities for Snapper, in particular dealing with the issue of ‘hyperstability’.
(4) Develop a tool kit to support fisheries managers recover Snapper stocks.

The main aim of the workshop is for each jurisdiction to exchange information on Snapper and to ensure that Snapper R&D has a national co-ordinated approach that addresses the challenges being faced, makes the most efficient use of available resources and integrates key stakeholders such as the recreational and commercial fisheries, government and research providers.

A better understanding of the impacts of environmental drivers on the population dynamics and abundance of key fishery species can inform flexible management decisions that pre-empt both risks of overfishing under adverse environmental conditions and opportunities for increased harvest under favourable conditions. This is increasingly important as shifting environmental dynamics drive geographical shifts in fish stocks.

This project will identify environmental variables influencing the abundance of three priority fishery species, quantify those relationships to enhance their stock assessment models, and develop a forward projection tool to inform adaptive management of each fishery. Target species - Spanner Crabs, Snapper and Pearl Perch – were selected based on key interest to management of fisheries in Queensland and NSW. Some associations between these species and certain abiotic environmental factors are already known, but there is yet to be a rigorous and comprehensive approach to this work, with the explicit goal of incorporating abiotic influences into Queensland and NSW stock assessments.

The project has three key objectives: (1) Find indices of association between measures of abundance and key environmental drivers; (2) Use these indices to enhance the existing stock assessment model for each species; and (3) Enable forecasting of environmentally driven fluctuations in targeted species’ abundance, including enhancing Management Strategy Evaluations (MSEs).

In particular, environmental correlates will be valuable to fisheries managers by: (a) reducing the uncertainty in biomass estimates, (b) explaining fluctuations in abundance, and (c) characterising what is a “bad year” for each species. Such information can be incorporated into MSEs.

The “Queensland Sustainable Fisheries Strategy 2017-2027” identifies several challenges to fulfilling its mission of ensuring the sustainability of fisheries and the economic viability of fishing sectors. The first of these is “gaps in monitoring and research, which limit the ability to make timely, evidence-based decisions”. This project will close some of these gaps and assist in formulating measures for promoting stock recovery and adaptive management.