This project is a strategic initiative to support seafood businesses in diversifying into new economic markets. Amidst evolving global challenges and the impact of Covid-19 on the seafood industry, the need for diversification is more pressing than ever. The proposed project addresses this need by providing seafood business with the necessary support and resources to diversify into a sector which boasts much potential: seafood tourism. Seafood tourism presents a practical and feasible approach to diversification, which leverages the intrigue of marine environments and the seafood production process. Whilst feasible, there are inherent challenges and risks involved in pursuing this diversification pathway. This project directly responds to the request of F&A for support in navigating the diversification process. Central to its approach, is the delivery of decision-support tools which can facilitate informed decision-making and mitigate potential risks involved in diversifying. These tools will be vital in ensuring F&A businesses make sound and strategic decisions regarding their suitability to different seafood tourism models.

There exists at present an opportunity to interview fishers with decades of experience in inshore net fisheries (many of them inheriting a multi-generational family history in those fisheries) to record their views and observations before that knowledge is dispersed or lost.

Many of these fishers have witnessed changes in the natural habitat in inshore waters, locations where they have spent the majority of their working days. They represent a living record of the changes witnessed in these habitats over the past half-century and more in some cases, invaluable if authorities aspire to one day restore inshore habitats to a state representing conditions there prior to significant human impacts on these waterways and adjacent watersheds.

It is also an opportunity to record changes seen by professional fishers – operators harvesting a public resource in public waters – in fishing practices, societal attitudes and management arrangements. At a time when the Australian population has more than doubled – from some 12.5 million (1970) to more than 26 million – and many Australians have moved to the coast, converting once sleepy fishing villages into bustling tourism meccas, these changes have been profound.

Above all, it is an opportunity to record an oral history of representative voices of a dwindling band of artisanal fishers. This project provides an opportunity to hear – and record – the views of fishers who consider themselves unheard; unheard historically and unheard in development of conservation and fisheries management measures over the past 12 months that have already seen most gillnet licences revoked throughout the GBR region and will see all gillnetting entitlements in the GBR region revoked by mid-2027.