22 results
Environment
People
People
People

Establishing a national end of life fishing/aquaculture gear recovery system for Australia

Project number: 2023-124
Project Status:
Current
Budget expenditure: $273,080.00
Principal Investigator: Anissa Lawrence
Organisation: TierraMar Ltd trading as Ocean Earth Foundation
Project start/end date: 29 Sep 2024 - 29 Jun 2026
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Need

Building on the circularity discussions and work being undertaken by FRDC and the industry, this project seeks to undertake the legwork required to establish a nationwide on-demand End of life (EOL) fishing gear recovery system for Australia and pilot it in key locations. The materials that many nets and ropes are made of are highly valuable and recyclable and in fact in many other countries, is already being recycled or remanufactured. Until now, having a national system has been cost prohibitive due to the large distances and need for economies of scale and limited local buyer interest. As a part of the national targets set by the Australian Government relating to plastics use and recycling, commercial fishing and aquaculture sectors have been exploring how to move to a circular economy model and reduce plastic inputs through a variety of projects run by FRDC and others. However, with fishing gear the biggest plastic polymer input, and contamination challenges, there has yet to be a suitable system established.

This project seeks to enable the opportunities that addressing EOL gear provides in Australia to the commercial fishing and aquaculture sector through the establishment of an effective EOL fishing gear recovery system for the country to reduce the landfill costs to industry. It seeks to build on the learnings from previous projects as well as the ten years of experience of our partner Bureo has in in operating an EOL fishing gear recovery program. Bureo currently have an EOL gear recovery system active in 9 countries.

The key objectives are:
● By the end of 2026 there is an effective end-of-life fishing/aquaculture gear recovery system implemented across key fishing ports, and key aquaculture centres benefiting regional communities and fisheries conservation and assisting the Australian Government to address plastic recovery/recycling targets.
● By the end of 2024, the enabling environment for an effective and fit for purpose EOL fishing/aquaculture gear recovery system is in place within Australia, with commencement of recycling underway in key pilot locations.

Objectives

1. By March 2025 the feasibility of and logistical requirements are understood to establish a national end of life recovery system for commercial fishing and aquaculture gear in Australia and an enabling pathway for roll out created.
2. By the end of 2026 there is an effective end-of-life fishing/aquaculture gear recovery system for Australia implemented across at least 5 key fishing ports, with measurable benefits being delivered to regional communities, industry, conservation, while contributing towards the Australian Government’s recycling targets.

Comparative evaluation of Integrated Coastal Marine Management in Australia - Workshop

Project number: 2017-214
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $14,640.00
Principal Investigator: Alistair Hobday
Organisation: CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere Hobart
Project start/end date: 19 Jun 2018 - 29 Nov 2018
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Need

There is widespread evidence, in Australia and internationally, of increased need for an improved, practical approach to integrated management (IM) of fisheries and other coastal marine activities that is able to fully embrace the social, economic and institutional aspects (the so-called ‘human dimensions), of management. Assessment and management systems traditionally neglect the human dimensions. Further, they treat sectors separately, often with different authorities managing diverse activities in different ways, resulting in inconsistencies in management across activities. The result is that there is almost no consideration of the cumulative social, economic or ecological impacts of multiple activities, and no way of informing trade-offs among activities in management decision-making.
Experience to date is that IM has been only partially successful. Management of multiple activities has been additive…squeezing one activity in among others (e.g aquaculture in light of others). While there are some examples of movement toward IM, these have resulted in partial or temporary success. There are examples where management has started toward IM, but progress has been stalled or has fallen back. In general, many preconditions exist, but it has been hypothesized that management is missing key aspects of intentional design that would allow IM to proceed.
The proposed workshop will bring together those with both the science knowledge and the operational knowledge of 8-10 Australian IM case studies and a few with international expertise, to evaluate and compare experience towards identifying key elements of success and failure of Integrated Management.

Objectives

1. Complete the creation of a lens for evaluation of Integrated Management that includes appropriate attention to social, cultural, economic, institutional as well as ecological aspects
2. Convene two workshops involving expert practitioners with sufficient scientific and operational knowledge of existing Australian Integrated Management case studies
3. Evaluate and compare experience on implementing IM in Australia using a single evaluative lens
4. Synthesize and report results of the evaluation and make recommendations for improved IM in Australia

Final report

ISBN: 978-1-4863-1276-4
Authors: Robert Stephenson Alistair Hobday Christopher Cvitanovic Maree Fudge Tim Ward Ian Butler Toni Cannard Mel Cowlishaw Ian Cresswell Jon Day Kirstin Dobbs Leo X.C. Dutra Stewart Frusher Beth Fulton Josh Gibson Bronwyn Gillanders Natalie Gollan Marcus Haward Trevor Hutton Alan Jordan Jan Macdonald Catriona Macleod Gretta Pecl Eva Plaganyi Ingrid van Putten Tony Smith Ian Poiner Joanna Vince
Final Report • 2019-08-02 • 1.16 MB
2017-214-DLD.pdf

Summary

The need for Integrated Management (IM) of diverse marine activities is increasing, but there has been no agreed IM framework. In 2017 and 2018, a team of researchers collaborated to develop a framework for implementation and a ‘lens’ for evaluation of IM.

Project products

Fact Sheet • 408.36 KB
2017-214 - Fact Sheet 1- Integrated Management.pdf

Summary

Integrated Management is an approach that links (integrates) planning, decision-making and management arrangements across sectors in a unified framework, to enable a more comprehensive view of sustainability and the consideration of cumulative effects and tradeoffs.
 
Nine key features and five phases of implementation provide a lens for implementation and evaluation of Integrated Management. 
Fact Sheet • 285.61 KB
2017-214 - Fact Sheet 2- Integrated Management.pdf

Summary

Integrated Management is an approach that links (integrates) planning, decision-making and management arrangements across sectors in a unified framework, to enable a more comprehensive view of sustainability and the consideration of cumulative effects and tradeoffs.
 
Evaluation of nine key features and five phases important to Integrated Management has been investigated in seven Australian case studies.
Article • 2.85 MB
2017-214 - Stephenson et al 2023.pdf

Summary

Integrated management (IM) has been widely proposed, but difficult to achieve in practice, and there remains the need for evaluation of examples that illustrate the practical issues that contribute to IM success or failure. This paper synthesises experiences of academics and practitioners involved in seven Australian case studies in which there have been attempts to integrate or take a broader, holistic perspective of management. The evaluative framework of Stephenson et al. (2019a) was used as a lens to explore, through workshops and a questionnaire survey, the nine key features and five anticipated stages of IM in the Gladstone Harbour Project, the Great Barrier Reef, the Northern Prawn fishery and regional development, the South-East Queensland Healthy Waterways Partnership, the Australian Oceans Policy, the New South Wales Marine Estate reforms, and progress toward Integrated Management in the Spencer Gulf. Workshops involving experts with direct experience of the case studies revealed that most of the key features (recognition of the need; a shared vision for IM; appropriate legal and policy frameworks; effective process for appropriate stakeholder participation; comprehensive suite of objectives (ecological, social, cultural, economic and institutional); consideration of trade-offs and cumulative effects of multiple activities; flexibility to adapt to changing conditions; process for ongoing review, evaluation and refinement; and effective resourcing) were seen as important in all case studies. However, there are only a few examples where key features of IM were implemented ‘fully’. A subsequent questionnaire of participants using ‘best-worst’ scaling indicated that an appropriate legal and institutional framework is considered to have most influence on IM outcomes, and therefore is the most important of the key features. This is followed in salience by effective stakeholder participation, effective resourcing, capacity and tools, and recognition of the need for IM. Key features may change in relative importance at different stages in the trajectory of IM. 
Industry
Communities

Travel bursary: Sustainable Ocean Summit 2017, Canada

Project number: 2017-142
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $18,000.00
Principal Investigator: Aaron Irving
Organisation: Fisheries Research and Development Corporation (FRDC)
Project start/end date: 15 Nov 2017 - 30 Dec 2017
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Need

Australia possesses significant coastal and near coastal oil and gas reserves within its continental shelf. It follows that oil and gas exploration (especially seismic) is also significant; especially in the the Bass Strait, Great Australian Bight and North-Western 'Kimberley' areas of Australia. Up until recently, the offshore regulatory framework which includes assessment of effects on the aquatic environment and engagement with other users has been somewhat nebulous and Offshore Industry driven, with the development of aquatic environmental benchmarks being based on the same process as offshore OH&S and butressed by disputed sometimes irrelevant science.
Seismic expoloration in recent years has seen increased interaction between different aquatic ecosystems and marine users, resulting in a "contact" situation that was initially calamitous; but which has resulted in significant investment in Marine biological R&D, an increase in the deployment of the precautionary principle and marine environmental policy innovation.

Johnathon Davey (SIV) and Aaron Irving (NAC) will deliver a presentation that will draw on a number of aquatic environmental effects research project where Australia's fishing sectors were or are driving, policy innovations that we assisted in driving or supporting and case studies including the pearling Industry story, to provide a snapshot of the exciting work being undertaken in Australia currently in the marine environmental space with regard to the effects of seismic surveying and the ability for different users to play together successfully.

Objectives

1. TO discuss issues relating to fisheries interactions in the marine environment

Final report

Author: Johnathon Davey
Final Report • 2017-12-01 • 645.12 KB
2017-142-DLD.pdf

Summary

The World Ocean Council (WOC) Sustainable Ocean Summit (SOS) was held from 29 November to 1 December 2017 in Halifax, Canada,.
The SOS 2017 theme was “The Ocean Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 14): Business Leadership and Business Opportunities”