Navigating New Waters: Supporting Fisheries and Aquaculture Businesses to Pursue Seafood Tourism as a Diversification Pathway
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.
Developing FRDC’s 2020-2025 RD&E Plan
Section 19 of PIRD Act requires R&D corporations to prepare R&D Plans for each consecutive 5-year period. Each plan is to include (at a minimum):
· a statement of the Corporation’s objectives and priorities for the period to which the plan is expressed to relate; and
· an outline of the strategies that the Corporation intends to adopt in order to achieve those objectives.
Under section 10 of the Funding Agreement between FRDC and the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources (DAWR), FRDC is required to develop a consultation plan, which seeks to:
• explain the purpose and objectives of consultation to inform the 2020-2025 RD&E Plan;
• describe who will be consulted;
• outline methods proposed; and,
• explain how input provided will be used.
FRDC is to obtain DAWR approval for the consultation plan prior to commencement of activities.
In order to develop an RD&E Plan which accurately interprets and responds to RD&E needs for Australia’s fishing and aquaculture community it is important to understand the aspirations, pain points, risks and opportunities of each sector over the intended life of the plan through undertaking broad consultation. It is also important to understand the current situation of the fishing and aquaculture (F&A) community (including indigenous, wild catch, aquaculture and recreational, and post-harvest sectors). The situational analysis should provide an updated understanding of what fishing and aquaculture looks like in Australia today, who is involved, what drives them, how they are performing, how the product (if retained) is used, what are the main dominant risks and trends. An earlier situational analysis delivered as an output of FRDC Project 2014/503.20 provides a useful template.
Finally, it is for any RD&E plan to be informed by an understanding of likely future trends, risks and opportunities facing Australia’s F&A community in the future. This requires:
· compilation of evidence to enable consideration of likely future geopolitical, social, economic, environmental and/or technical changes likely to occur in the future, and drivers of those changes;
· generation of projections relating to supply and demand for seafood products as well as cultural and/or recreational time use
Final report
that ran in parallel to the CSIRO contribution. This process involved a series of stakeholder workshops and follow-up discussions, to which CSIRO staff were occasional observers.
The models were then tested to see how well they compared to the dynamics described in the future scenarios, and here model predictions were found to be highly consistent with the dynamics played out in the two future scenarios – that is, both worlds are likely.
FRDC Stakeholder Survey Program
Developing a guidance document for Whichfish Risk Assessment
Whichfish.com.au is the FRDC B2B portal which provides the results of the risk assessments of key Australian commercial species as well as those species which have are certified under a GSSI recognised scheme. It is important that external assessors apply and interpret information in a consistent way.
This requires a supporting document, a Guidance Document, to guide assessors on how to interpret the risk assessment criteria, the evidence to be used and on scoring. This Guidance will be used for both Australian species assessments (Whichfish.com.au) and New Zealand(openseas.org.nz).
This project seeks to develop that guidance document.
Following this project, any species undergoing risk assessments will have outcomes reported on the respective ANZ websites to ensure full transparency.