The Northern Territory Seafood Council (NTSC) and the Northern Territory Government (NTG) recognise the vital need to bridge the knowledge gap regarding the economic impact of the NT seafood industry. This gap severely impedes effective advocacy for industry growth and development by the NTSC and hampers evidence decision-making. Without a comprehensive understanding of the industry's economic footprint throughout the supply chain of each major fishery/sector, it is challenging to address critical issues and identify vulnerable points within the sector.

A whole of fishery and sector analysis, will provide essential insights for targeted advocacy and informed decision-making, fostering sustainable growth, enhancing resilience, and addressing critical issues within the Northern Territory's seafood industry.

Understanding the complete value of the NT seafood industry to the local community is crucial for making strategic decisions related to negotiations such as those concerning Blue Mud Bay and infrastructure investments. It will also contribute to ongoing investment in the industry.

The project aims to test economic protocols and processes identified in FRDC Project 2021-034 to establish cost-effective and valued systems beyond its duration. These systems will incorporate socio-economic information into decision-making processes and shift the culture from a government-driven collection process to one driven by the industry.

Without a plan to highlight the wider socio-economic value and benefits of the industry, the industry may face mounting pressure on its social license to operate, impacting access, industry structure, and fees. Moreover, the lack of understanding regarding the consequences of uncertainty surrounding secure access and potential loss of access for commercial fishers may have unintended effects on the NT seafood industry. Additionally, the limited availability of current financial and economic information for NT fisheries hampers economic analysis and the provision of advice to policymakers and decision-makers, hindering opportunities for growth and sustainability.

With that context in mind, NTSC experience to date identifies a number of known issues with existing data, including:
- Limitations in the scope of data available which has historically excluded measurement of the contributions made by commercial charter fishing, processing of imported seafood, and activities downstream of immediate seafood processing (i.e. transport to retail markets, retail sector activity).
- The poor quality of economic data (such as production, price and employment data) necessary to improve estimates of direct or initial effects from fishing, aquaculture production and processing in some fisheries and for some sub-sectors and seafood processing (where there is a need to further disaggregate ANZSIC categories or investigate alternative means of measurement for fisheries with too few licence holders for data to be reported).
- Gaps in data regarding indirect contributions, including downstream production-induced and consumption-induced effects, where key data regarding employment, household-income and enterprise-level cost of production (i.e. expenditure on goods and services as inputs to fishing and aquaculture production) are unknown.
- Gaps in data for a range of monetised and non-monetised social, environmental and cultural activities which contribute value to individuals and communities. While previous estimations have referred to the social contributions of fisheries and aquaculture to regional communities this has not involved any primary data collection or analysis of secondary data, requiring further work to select specific indicators and the basis of evidence.

In scoping and analysing the available data, the project will use third party providers to:
- Ensure data collection methods are consistent and participant consent and privacy is achieved. The privacy of participants must be protected through adherence to the Australian Privacy Principles in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), such that names of individuals are not recorded. Where the explicit informed consent of participants is required this may include a requirement to sign a consent form. Under circumstances where a vulnerable group is consulted, such as Indigenous Territorians, specific consent may be required from a Human Research Ethics Committee to ensure the data collection process causes no harm to participants.
- Ensure data storage is secure and access is limited to the reasonable requirements of the project. All digital data (i.e. from an online survey) would be stored on a secure network with file access restricted to the nominated project team through use of file encryption and passwords. Any primary data collected cannot be used for any purpose other than that required to meet study objectives.

The operating environment within which Australian fisheries and aquaculture are positioned is complex, comprising economic, social and political institutions and organisations that are continuously being re-shaped by multiple external and internal drivers.

Addressing these specific drivers requires understanding of the human dimensions of fisheries and aquaculture, along with the biophysical. Human dimensions refers to the social, economic and cultural factors that affect outcomes for both the seafood community and in terms of public good. This includes the attitudes, processes and behaviours of individual people, companies, management agencies, communities, organisations, consumers, and markets. Human dimensions research has been successfully applied to understand how to enable better outcomes for Australia's fisheries and aquaculture (e.g. improved social acceptability, resilience through shocks, inclusive growth, economic productivity), and what are the effective strategies to achieve this (e.g. market based mechanisms, behavioural approaches). It brings together research capability from a broad range of disciplines.

Historically, achieving the level of coordinated investment required to effectively deliver against this need has been hampered by a range of factors, which have included:
• effective integration of human dimensions RD&E with biophysical sciences; and
• research capability and expertise capable of undertaking such research to ensure end user needs are met.

The FRDC has invested substantively in human dimensions R&D capability in recognition of this need. Ongoing coordination and strategic development of human dimensions R&D activities will support the FRDC to deliver its Fish Forever 2030 vision: Collaborative, vibrant fishing and aquaculture, creating diverse benefits from aquatic resources, and celebrated by the community.

The FRDC considers Coordination Programs as critical to delivering relevant outcomes of the R&D Plan. With respect to Human Dimensions, it is evident that a planned R&D outcome can be achieved more successfully if expertise and related activities are developed and managed in a coordinated manner.

Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs) and Individual Transferable Effort (ITE) systems have been introduced to a wide range of Australian fisheries (FRDC 2017-159). Since 1985, forty-six ITQs have been introduced to a range of fisheries and can be found across all jurisdictions in Australia; six ITEs have also been introduced, mainly in prawn trawl fisheries. Such systems allocate shares or portions of a total allowable catch (TAC), or total allowable effort (TAE), between fishers, vessels, communities, or others with an interest in the fishery.

Experience shows that ITQs as generally designed and implemented have not always fully delivered promised outcomes, have had outcomes that were unintended and unwanted, and in some instances have resulted in outcomes that make it difficult for fisheries managers to deliver against other, in many cases non-economic, objectives of fisheries management. In some instances, these unintended and unwanted consequences may also have been inappropriately attributed to the ITQs/ITEs and may more be down to other drivers such as globalisation or changes in stock abundance.

Building on industry and management’s growing interest in improving ITQ-fishery outcomes (SRL Corporatisation Workshop, Melbourne Airport, October 2019) and on the findings of 2017-159, this work will aim to provide evidence-based advice to managers and industry on options to address any performance gaps or unintended and unwanted consequences, and the potential effects of any proposed interventions on the economic, social and environmental outcomes of ITQs as generally implemented in Australian fisheries. The scope of options will include industry-led private sector initiatives, as well as Government-led changes to management.