PROJECT NUMBER
•
2022-012
PROJECT STATUS:
CURRENT
ORGANISATION:
University of Tasmania (UTAS)
TAGS
SPECIES
54 results
PROJECT NUMBER
•
2022-008
PROJECT STATUS:
CURRENT
ORGANISATION:
Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (NSW)
SPECIES
Role of marine reserves in sustainable management of Australia's ocean estate - review of the Heard Island and McDonald Islands bioregion
Project number:
2023-205
Project Status:
Current
Budget expenditure:
$119,200.00
Principal Investigator:
Travis J. Baulch
Organisation:
TJB Management Pty Ltd
Project start/end date:
23 Jun 2024
-
29 Sep 2024
Contact:
FRDC
SPECIES
The HIMI bioregion supports significant marine conservation values as well as a highly sustainable, and valuable commercial fishing industry. Typically, marine parks/reserve development processes are tasked with developing marine spatial planning arrangements that achieve a balance between preserving conservation values of the area and maintaining/promoting human activities through the principles of Ecologically Sustainable Development (ESD). However, key uncertainties remain regarding the policy priorities and how the final design of marine parks are objectively determined.
This project will provide an independent assessment of the framework used for original design of the HIMI Marine Reserve in 2002, the review in 2014, and the current review to provide recommendations for future development. The project will also explore how/if the policy objectives have been achieved since inception . Furthermore, this project will explore the potential of a quantitative risk-based approach to provide for minimising the uncertainties in the Marine Protected Area (MPA) development processes and deliver an objective framework.
In addition, the project will explore the current HIMI marine reserve framework, the associated commercial fishing industry arrangements and how they intersect with regard to:
Regulation
• Regulatory processes to minimise impacts of commercial fishing
• Legislative framework currently in place for Ecological Risk Assessment/ESD, Ecosystem-Based Fisheries Management, bycatch policy strategic research plans
• Marine Protected Areas review processes
• Statutory Fishing Rights (SFRs)
Economic impacts
• Commercial fishing viability
• Statutory fishing rights
• Permitted fishing gear types – (e.g. potential removal of MSC certified trawl fisheries with additional implications on research activity)
Biological impacts
• Impact on juvenile toothfish index of abundance and icefish estimates – accuracy of tracking stock will be significantly reduced if ability to trawl is removed (i.e. random stratified trawl survey impacted)
• Stock assessment model ability to consider toothfish population structure if longline fishery further constrained
• Climate change and effects of population shift
• Increasing policy position of MPAs as fisheries management tools
• Increased localised depletion and constrained ability to distribute commercial fishing effort
Social Impacts
• Market access
• Community sentiment
1. Evaluate the technical approach used in the design of the HIMI marine reserve with specific reference to scientific and policy objectives
2. Examine management plan frameworks in regard to research outcomes since plan implementation
3. Provide recommendations in relation to review of the HIMI marine reserve
Final report
Authors:
Travis Baulch
Colin D. Buxton
Rick Fletcher and Alistair J. Hobday
Final Report
•
2024-11-01
•
2.10 MB
2023-205-DLD.pdf
The statutory requirement to undertake a 10-year review of the Heard and McDonald Islands (HIMI) Marine Reserve led to a proposal to expand the HIMI marine reserve and include new National Park Zones (IUCN II) and Habitat Protection Zone (IUCN IV) arrangements. Subsequently, the total area of the HIMI Marine Reserve has been increased to 379,070 square kilometres, a 400% increase over the previous marine reserve. This report aims to assess how current (and proposed) management frameworks relate to the National Representative System of Marine Protected Areas (NRSMPA) objectives, but also the extent to which they meet the overarching principles of Ecologically Sustainable Development (ESD) which requires holistic consideration of all relevant environment, social and economic objectives, as well as meeting obligations under various international legislation and conventions. As the expansion incorporates the area within which Australia’s Heard Island and McDonald Islands Fishery operates, this report explores the basis of the expansion with particular reference to the implications for future fishery arrangements, management frameworks and longer-term fishery viability.
PROJECT NUMBER
•
2014-028
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED
Mud cockle (Katelysia spp.) stock enhancement/restoration: practical implementation and policy evaluation
This study was conducted to restore the Mud Cockle population in the Section Bank of Port River, South Australia, which had drastically decreased due to commercial fishing. Mud Cockles are important not only for commercial purposes but also for stabilizing sediment and reducing turbidity in the...
ORGANISATION:
SARDI Food Safety and Innovation
SPECIES
PROJECT NUMBER
•
2016-407
PROJECT STATUS:
CURRENT
Capability and Capacity: Nuffield Australia Scholarships
The Australian seafood industry has a long and proud history of employment of very sound environmental and economic management principles which have made it the envy of much of the world.
An altogether robust Australian seafood industry is hyper critical to the social and economic fabric of...
ORGANISATION:
Nuffield Australia
PROJECT NUMBER
•
2023-114
PROJECT STATUS:
CURRENT
ORGANISATION:
Bowerman Ventures Pty Ltd
SPECIES
PROJECT NUMBER
•
2017-006
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED
ORGANISATION:
Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (NSW)
SPECIES
Determination of the impacts of direct harvest of coral species in northern Australia
Project number:
2019-070
Project Status:
Current
Budget expenditure:
$360,000.00
Principal Investigator:
Michael Usher
Organisation:
Department of Agriculture and Fisheries (NT)
Project start/end date:
31 May 2020
-
20 Aug 2023
Contact:
FRDC
Australia’s aquarium fisheries are high value (GVP >$20 million), small scale fisheries that rely on exporting CITES listed corals for profitability and viability. The Australian government requires fisheries collecting and exporting these species to demonstrate that their harvest is sustainable under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) in order to meet Australia's obligations under CITES.
In the absence of empirical evidence, precautionary harvest limits are set on all coral species, and monitored and reported by NT Fisheries to the Commonwealth Department of Environment and Energy (DoEE), to fulfil EPBC requirements. Increased global demand for valuable coral species presents an opportunity for licenced fishers to develop new and existing international markets. However, in order to increase harvest limits, evidence is required to reinforce that the harvest and subsequent export will not have a detrimental effect on the population status of the species (CITES non-detriment finding). Any supporting non-detriment finding must be corroborated with new empirical evidence on the impacts of harvesting corals.
The FRDC project ‘Establishing baselines and assessing vulnerability of commercially harvested corals across northern Australia’ (FRDC 2014-029) (currently underway) attempts to address some of these issues including taxonomy, abundance and distribution of key coral species but fails to address the long-standing concern of the impacts of coral harvesting. Understanding and quantifying the impacts of harvesting coral has the potential for providing the greatest benefit to industry. The specific need is to investigate the extent of recovery (or not) of key species of Scleractinian (hard) corals harvested at the level of individual colonies over an appropriate temporal scale.
Members of the A12 Aquarium display fishery are supportive of this project and will be actively involved in assisting with data collection. This project directly addresses the NT Research Advisory Committee priority ‘Impact of harvesting key species of Scleractinian (hard) corals in the Northern Territory’.
1. Establish a monitoring program involving commercial fishers to determine the impacts of harvest on key coral species.
2. Improve the accuracy of coral species identification through the development of an NT identification guide.
3. Assess reproductive modes, and establish rates of recruitment for commercially important Northern Territory corals.
Film/video
PROJECT NUMBER
•
2022-007
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED
ORGANISATION:
Fishwell Consulting Pty Ltd
PROJECT NUMBER
•
2019-036
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED
Implementation of dynamic reference points and harvest strategies to account for environmentally-driven changes in productivity in Australian fisheries
The need to adapt stock assessment methods and harvest strategies to explicitly and justifiably account for shifts in productivity has been recognised by the AFMA Resource Assessment Group for the Southern and Eastern Scalefish and Shark Fishery (SESSF), not least as a result of clearly evident...
ORGANISATION:
Pisces Australis Pty Ltd
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