In October 2018, FRDC funded the first national workshop on tropical oyster aquaculture (Osborne, 2018). This successful event addressed a need to foster greater collaboration across the various projects and provide strategic direction to future research and development activities. Since then, significant progress has been made in tropical rock oyster RD&E, both in Australia and internationally, and work is underway across the tropics to further develop the industry (Nowland et al., 2019). To maintain momentum and continue to foster collaboration in this field, an International Tropical Rock Oyster Workshop will be hosted by NT Fisheries and The Pacific Community (SPC), supported by the Cooperative Research Centre for Developing Northern Australia (CRCNA), in the days before the World Aquaculture Conference 2023 in Darwin. The workshop will bring together a broad range of stakeholders to discuss the status and current knowledge of tropical oyster aquaculture research and development. This will provide an opportunity to share experiences and develop an international network for tropical oyster aquaculture. As well as to discuss and document current bottlenecks/issues confronting tropical oyster farming, such as; hatchery production, disease, grow-out technology and shellfish quality assurance.

This workshop is running alongside the World Aquaculture Conference 2023 in Darwin. The project team have identified key people in the region (commercial produces and Traditional Owners) that would add additional value to the workshop and the World Aquaculture Conference 2023. However, they do not have the means to fund their own attendance.

Workshop information
Date: Sunday 28th & Monday 29th May 2023
Location: Convention Centre, Darwin NT, Australia
Sessions will cover:
Day 1 (Sunday 28th May; 8.30am – 5.00pm):
- Regional updates on existing tropical oyster aquaculture; Australia (NT, Qld and WA), Fiji, Malaysia, New Caledonia, Tahiti, Vietnam, Cuba, Brazil, New Zealand, Indonesia and the Philippines
- Evening social event (from 5.30pm): Networking drinks and nibbles at the Oyster Bar.
Day 2 (Monday 29th May; 8.30am – 3.00pm):
- Focus topics and breakout sessions on major issues confronting development of tropical oyster aquaculture, such as; hatchery production, food safety, disease and business development.
A detailed program will be distributed in the weeks leading up to the workshop.

World Aquaculture Conference Information
Date: Monday 29th May to Thursday 1 June
Location: Convention Centre, Darwin NT, Australia
Sessions cover diverse aquaculture topics from feed development to training and governance structures.

Fish and aquatic species play a vital role in global food security by providing nearly 17% of animal protein eaten by people. However, freshwater and marine aquatic ecosystems that sustain aquaculture and fisheries are undergoing significant changes as a result of global warming of our atmosphere and oceans with projections suggesting that these changes will be heightened in the future (Bahri et al., 2018). It is estimated that global marine primary production (ie phytoplankton) which underpins the health and sustainability of all marine ecosystems will decline by 6 +/- 3% by 2100 (Bahri et al., 2018). This decline in primary productivity will result in key vulnerabilities in aquatic food production that contribute to global food security. Climate-driven changes in temperature, precipitation, ocean acidification, incidence and extent of hypoxia and sea level rise, amongst others, are expected to have long-term impacts in the aquaculture and fisheries sectors at multiple scales (Bahri et al., 2018, Fulton et al., 2020).

Australia’s marine environment is changing faster than at any other period in recorded history (Fulton et al., 2020). In the last 100 years, Australia's oceans have warmed by 1C and there are identified hotspots located in southeast and southwest Australia which have warmed by 2C (Hobday et al., 2018). The surface sea temperatures around Australia are expected to increase by another 1 to 2C in the north and 2 to 5C in the south over the next 100 years (Hobday et al., 2018). While the warming is predicted to continue, the specific mixes of atmospheric and ocean current patterns around Australia mean the magnitude of climate change will differ place-to-place, and different aquaculture and fisheries and sectors will face different challenges (Fulton et al., 2020).

Biological and ecological impacts of climate change on aquatic ecosystems include shifts in food resources, habitat availability and fluctuations in species distributions (Bahri et al., 2018, Fulton et al., 2020). The FAO (Bahri et al., 2018) have identified that climate change may also bring increased risks for aquatic animal health (e.g., by changing the abundance and virulence of pathogens or the susceptibility of the host to pathogens and infections) and food safety concerns (e.g., faster growth rates of pathogenic marine bacteria, or the incidence of parasites and food-borne viruses).

The project proposed will use a risk analysis framework applied at the sector-level to address the change in the risks of infectious diseases in Australian aquaculture and fisheries industries due to climate change. The project outcomes will identify and prioritize the risks from infectious diseases under the future climate scenarios. This project falls under the research priority to address sector-level mitigation strategies to support strategies for disease preparedness, biosecurity, and border protection. The project outcomes will assist industries in preparing risk mitigation strategies to build resilience and sustain productivity in Australia’s aquaculture and fishery industries.

References
Bahri, T., Barange, M., Moustahfid, H. 2018. Chapter 1: Climate change and aquatic systems. In Barange, M., Bahri, T., Beveridge, M.C.M., Cochrane, K.L., Funge-Smith, S., Poulain, F. (Eds), Impacts of climate change on fisheries and aquaculture: synthesis of current knowledge, adaptation and mitigation options. FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Technical Paper No. 627. Rome, FAO, pp. 1-18.

Fulton EA, van Putten EI, Dutra LXC, Melbourne-Thomas J, Ogier E, Thomas L, Murphy RP, Butler I, Ghebrezgabhier D, Hobday AJ, Rayns N (2020) Adaptation of fisheries management to climate change Handbook, CSIRO, Australia.

Hobday, A.J., Pecl, G.T., Fulton, B., Pethybridge, H., Bulman, C., Villanueva, C. 2018. Chapter 16: Climate change impacts, vulnerabilities and adaptions: Australian marine fisheries. In Barange, M., Bahri, T., Beveridge, M.C.M., Cochrane, K.L., Funge-Smith, S., Poulain, F. (Eds), Impacts of climate change on fisheries and aquaculture: synthesis of current knowledge, adaptation and mitigation options. FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Technical Paper No. 627. Rome, FAO, pp. 347-362.

This project is focused on improving industry and government preparedness to respond to nationally significant exotic disease outbreaks and in doing so, protect or minimise the impacts of exotic diseases on profitability and productivity. There are national preparedness arrangements in place however (fortunately) many of these have yet to be used in a real-world response, including the AQUAVETPLAN response manuals which outline technical response arrangements and the draft Aquatic Deed which outlines how costs and managing emergency responses will be shared among industry and government. Prospective parties are currently considering whether they will ratify the draft Aquatic Deed. This project is not dependent on whether the deed is ratified and can be adapted to the circumstances of existing response arrangements.

This project addresses the need to test existing contingency planning arrangements for some nationally important exotic diseases to increase shared understanding among industry and governments of their responsibilities and capabilities that they can bring to a response. The main objective is to test arrangements and identify any gaps in peace time for how a response can be undertaken most cost effectively. For governments, this includes understanding operational aspects of industry including assets that could be used for a response. For industry, it includes understanding any gaps in preparedness in particular operational gaps and identifying where and how they could be addressed in peace time.

Scenario-based discussion exercises are a cost-effective way of validating the procedures or processes and are valuable for building the knowledge and preparedness of participating organisations (governments and industry). Conducting a series of exercises based on existing contingency arrangements will contribute to closing the gaps between current capability and current needs and improve levels of preparedness for priority exotic diseases.