5 results

Sea Change: co-developing pathways to mitigate and adapt to a changing climate for fisheries and aquaculture in Australia

Project number: 2023-011
Project Status:
Current
Budget expenditure: $1,628,586.00
Principal Investigator: Gretta T. Pecl
Organisation: University of Tasmania (UTAS)
Project start/end date: 31 Oct 2023 - 30 Apr 2027
Contact:
FRDC
TAGS
Climate Resilience
Climate Mitigation
Climate Change
Adaptation

Need

There is a need to increase effective engagement between fishing and aquaculture stakeholders and climate science and scientists in an ongoing strategic way, and not ‘just’ for single-project outcomes.

Improved engagement will help increase understanding of the likely implications of a changing climate in relevant contexts, and lay foundations for a shared exploration of available options for reducing risk exposure. We have worked with stakeholders and the FRDC Extension Officer Network to design a strategy that will engage fishing and aquaculture stakeholders on existing knowledge regarding risks and opportunities associated with a changing climate, to enable resource managers and researchers to better understand the ways in which many sectors are already adapting autonomously and to identify the barriers to further adaptation, and to co-design solutions that are relevant at local- and industry-levels to help build climate-ready communities and to stimulate economic resilience.

In many cases (but not all), extensive information regarding marine climate change - including key risks to fisheries and aquaculture producers (at a high level) - is already available, along with information on how to develop adaptation plans. However, despite this, progress and uptake within most sectors in terms of planned adaptation responses has been very slow – although many individual operators are already making ‘autonomous’ changes to their day-to-day operations in response to climate change drivers. If these changes are being made without access to best available knowledge, then it is very likely that substantial portions of these responses are maladaptive in the longer term, or may be countervailing to planned government adaptations (see Pecl et al 2019, Ambio, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13280-019-01186-x). This is a pattern evident within many different industries around Australia and across the rest of the world. ‘What’ needs to happen has thus been outlined in general terms in many cases, but such information is not co-developed or provided in consultation with end-users in ways that resonate or are useful to them. This project will address this need for relevance and usefulness.

The project aims to develop reflexive, ongoing, and two-way knowledge exchange between industry representatives, operators and manager, and the marine climate change impacts and adaptation research sector, so that solutions are co-designed, usable, and adoptable.

Objectives

1. Work with seafood industry leaders to establish two-way climate conversations that can strengthen and underpin Australian fishing and aquaculture’s resilience to a changing climate. This approach will facilitate co-design of pathways to increase agility and build capacity for climate change adaptation with a select number of fisheries and aquaculture operations. This process will also create a model that can be applicable to other RDC’s.
2. Create a climate conversations platform to facilitate knowledge exchange (including identifying ‘gaps’ and shared issues), and thus capture, disseminate, and showcase:a. How fishing and aquaculture sectors are already adapting and responding to recent changesb. What has facilitated these changes made, and what the barriers are to further adaptationc. The story of fishing and aquaculture’s efforts towards achieving climate resilience - using a dynamic ‘story map’ approach, and other multi-media, communicate progress to target audiences.
3. Identify a) key factors influencing the agility of fisheries and aquaculture to adapt to climate change, and b) which factors (e.g. opportunities) are most important for adaptation capacity-building for different types of operations - building on work underway across multiple domestic and international projects and working groups.
4. Co-develop pathways, with a select number of fisheries and aquaculture operations, to increase their agility and build sector capacity for climate change adaptation and resilience.
5. Support the development of communities of practice for groups of fisheries and/or aquaculture operations that have similar opportunities and pathways – to support increased agility and capacity building for climate change adaptation (determined in objective 3).
Industry
People

Determinates of socially-supported wild-catch and aquaculture fisheries in Australia

Project number: 2017-158
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $66,868.94
Principal Investigator: Karen A. Alexander
Organisation: University of Tasmania (UTAS)
Project start/end date: 14 Feb 2018 - 30 Jul 2018
Contact:
FRDC
TAGS
Sustainability
Stakeholder
Resource Access And Allocation
Human Dimensions Research
Community

Need

In order to secure the future of Australian wild-catch and aquaculture fisheries, it is increasingly clear that, alongside effective and responsible management and production, building and maintaining societal support is vital.

There are a number of recent examples in Australia where wild-catch and aquaculture fisheries have been threatened, even shut down, as a result of not having a ‘social license to operate’. This is despite having good ecological, economic and management credentials. Examples include: the 2016 closure of the Victorian small scale Port Phillip Bay net fishery as a result of pressure from the recreational fishing sector; the environmental controversy over mid-water trawling (‘super trawlers’) for small pelagic species despite scientifically-determined healthy stock status; and environmental non-governmental organisations (eNGOs) campaigns against Tassal’s proposed fish farm operations in Okehampton Bay on Tasmania’s east coast.

The wild-catch and aquaculture industries are increasingly and acutely aware of the need to garner societal support. But, they are unsure of how to address poor societal support at its root, who needs to be involved to address the problem, and effective pathways to improving societal support. From an industry perspective, there are gaps in knowledge in terms of 1) identifying the determinants of poor/high societal support; 2) identifying stakeholder groups to target who determine societal support and outcomes for wild-catch and aquaculture fisheries (e.g. other resource user groups, eNGOs, decision-makers and government, consumers, other publics); and 3) appropriate, effective and innovative pathways to improve societal support through engagement strategies and interventions.

However, there is a wealth of information available that is not directly or easily transferable currently. It requires collation and synthesis to address the knowledge gaps, including learnings from other industries, international wild-catch and aquaculture fisheries, as well as historical case studies of successes and failures within Australia. This project will draw together knowledge from existing literature and documentation and also use key informant interviews to address the above gaps.

Objectives

1. To provide a nuanced definition of societal support for wild-catch and aquaculture fisheries in Australia
2. To identify determining factors (social, economic, environmental and political) affecting societal support for wild-catch and aquaculture fisheries in Australia
3. To identify means by which to detect, assess and monitor societal support for wild-catch and aquaculture fisheries in Australia using a risk-based approach

Final report

ISBN: 978-1-925646-82-5
Author: Karen A. Alexander & Kirsten E. Abernethy
Final Report • 2019-08-31 • 1.21 MB
2017-158-DLD-final.pdf

Summary

Australia’s wild-catch fisheries and aquaculture are increasingly attentive to the importance of having support from communities and stakeholders to ensure their future sustainability and prosperity. This project aimed to identify determinants of socially-supported wild-catch fisheries and aquaculture in Australia. This project was developed collaboratively with the Human Dimensions Research Subprogram and relevant industry stakeholders and extends previous FRDC projects by examining differential definitions and assessments of social acceptability.
Environment
PROJECT NUMBER • 2015-024
PROJECT STATUS:
CURRENT

Managing ecosystem interactions across differing environments: building flexibility and risk assurance into environmental management strategies

Summary The overarching aim of this research was to provide an improved understanding of the environmental interactions of Atlantic Salmon farming and to provide recommendations to both government and industry on monitoring and management strategies that are appropriate to the level of risk...
ORGANISATION:
University of Tasmania (UTAS)
TAGS
Storm Bay
Rac Tas
Climate Resilience
Aquaculture
SPECIES
Atlantic Salmon
Blacklip Abalone
Greenlip Abalone
Trouts
Whitebaits
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