232 results

Fisheries Management: From Science to Sustainable Practices (program development)

Project number: 2023-089
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $134,589.09
Principal Investigator: Jenny Cook
Organisation: Brentwood Kitchens Pty Ltd trading as Jenny Cook Consulting
Project start/end date: 30 Nov 2023 - 28 Oct 2025
Contact:
FRDC
TAGS
Fisheries Management
Education
Capacity Building

Need

Developing the capability and capacity relating to fisheries management is crucial to enable a sustainable fishing industry and a viable fishing and aquaculture community.

Current global, national and jurisdictional workforce challenges are impacting on attracting and retaining capable fisheries managers, with a growing need to build entry level capability with new entrants and those transitioning into fisheries management. Additionally, the need to inform and educate stakeholders about fisheries science and fisheries management continues to increase as changes to regulations and operations occur, impacting on license to operate, undertake strategic business planning and necessitating capabilities enabling negotiation, collaboration and stakeholder engagement.

In collaboration with Ian Knuckey, FRDC and end users, this project will design and develop a road map to build and pilot a Fisheries Management: From Science to Sustainable Practices program. This approach will increase access and reach in terms of stakeholder engagement/end users, building capability and capacity in fishing and aquaculture community beyond current learning opportunities. Learning will be accessible to a range of cohorts and via industry structures requesting access to fisheries management training and development, specifically harvest strategies and stock assessment. The project will enable different approaches to learning to be explored by FRDC and available stakeholders including self-directed (on demand), hybrid and face to face workshops via extension.

This project provides an opportunity to ensure DAWE/DAFF investment is leveraged, to think differently on utilising resources to build fisheries management capability and move towards a learning hub approach to build capability and capacity. The project will provide a flexible learning journey pathway for a variety of end users which is clear, can be personalised and aligned to enabling continuous capability and capacity development, providing a structured approach capable of future growth.

Objectives

1. Transition and enhance learning resources to improve awareness, access and applicability to enable capability development
2. Develop clear learning and development pathways with and for diverse, identified audiences
3. Build individual and collective capability and capacity within the fisheries community
4. Enable effective learning and knowledge transfer through varied modalities, catering to different learning styles that foster engagement

Final report

Author: Jenny Cook
Final Report • 2024-11-22
2023-089-DLD.pdf

Summary

The Fisheries Capacity Building Network project, led by Ian Knuckey and funded through Department of Water and Environment (DAWE) aimed to drive more effective engagement in Commonwealth fisheries management processes by Indigenous, recreational and commercial fisheries representatives and concluded in 2023. The Fisheries Capacity Building Network developed a portal with information, resources and links to help educate stakeholders about fisheries science and fisheries management; training activities in consultation with Indigenous, recreational and commercial fisheries representatives; and delivered training activities to Indigenous, recreational and commercial fisheries representatives. Whilst successful, this project was significantly impacted by COVID-19 which restricted face to face workshop delivery with stakeholders. As a result, the project utilised online resources, information sharing and meeting environments to build capacity. 

With the project ceasing, there was an opportunity to include project delivery and engagement learnings and transition resources into improved learning pathways to enable self directed, hybrid and facilitated learning via FRDC. The project will utilise the FRDC website for on-demand style learning and learning management system (LMS) platform to host topics/modules.

This project builds on initial transition work, funded by Fisheries Capacity Building Network project in collaboration with FRDC, to retain and re-imagine building capability and capacity for broader and diverse stakeholders which utilises technology to compliment learning approaches.  The program aims to:
 
  • Develop clear learning pathways for diverse audiences
  • Build sustainable capacity and capability
  • Enable effective learning through varied modalities
  • Foster collaboration and knowledge-sharing among diverse stakeholders within the fisheries sector
  • Providing accessible, engaging foundational educational resources on fisheries science and sustainable management practices
Industry
Environment
Industry
Environment
PROJECT NUMBER • 2017-082
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Ensuring monitoring and management of bycatch in Southern Rock Lobster fisheries is best practice

Bycatch is an important issue in fisheries worldwide, with the impacts of fishing activities on non-targeted species and the wider marine environment receiving increasing public attention. Issues such as the potential wastage of resources through discarding of unwanted catch, ecological impacts on...
ORGANISATION:
University of Tasmania (UTAS)
TAGS
Threatened Endangered Protected Species
Stakeholder
Mortality
Data
Bycatch
SPECIES
Southern Rock Lobster
Adoption
Blank
Blank
PROJECT NUMBER • 2017-214
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Comparative evaluation of Integrated Coastal Marine Management in Australia - Workshop

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....
ORGANISATION:
CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere Hobart
TAGS
Resource Access And Allocation
Policy
Human Dimensions Research
Fisheries Management
Ecosystem

Cumulative impacts across fisheries in Australia's marine environment

Project number: 2018-020
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $391,000.00
Principal Investigator: Beth Fulton
Organisation: CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere Hobart
Project start/end date: 17 Mar 2019 - 29 Nov 2020
Contact:
FRDC
TAGS
Sustainability
Rac Cmwth
Marine Park
Habitat
Fishing Effort

Need

The need for cumulative impact assessment (CIA) is increasingly being recognized. The development process for Australia's Harvest and Bycatch Policies, and their associated guidelines have reinforced the need for assessment of cumulative impacts, and the EPBC Act has also explicitly required consideration of cumulative impacts.

Where multiple activities occur or are planned, an understanding of their combined effects on the environment is necessary to address policy requirements and achieve sustainability. The concept of cumulative impact assessment is not new – indeed cumulative assessment has been recognized for many years, and a range of methods have been proposed around the globe. However, no methodology for undertaking cumulative assessments has been accepted nationally or globally. In addition to considering the impacts across all fishing sectors (commercial, recreational, indigenous, as required by recent changes to the Fisheries Administration Act 1991) and all fisheries, there is also an increasing need to consider other users of marine resources and coastal waters (e.g. renewable energy, shipping etc), especially where space crowding may be an issue.

Target species stock assessments typically consider the species of interest as well as other sources of fishing mortality (e.g. discards), but they do not usually consider their effects on other fisheries sectors or the effects of other sectors on the focal fishery. CIA methods therefore need to consider interactive and indirect effects. To date, interactive effects are often viewed as additive (simple linear addition of one impact to another) with little consideration given to synergistic, antagonistic or non-linear effects. While the ERAEF toolbox used for assessment of bycatch and protected species has some potential options for cumulative impacts (e.g. SAFE method), at this stage they are insufficient for moving to the scales and complexities across multiple fishing sectors and fisheries.

Thus, sustainable fisheries management requires new approaches that consider all sectors and all fisheries and how they impact the environment. Such CIAs will be challenging given that empirical data are often lacking - a dedicated research effort is needed.

Objectives

1. Undertake a two part review. This first part being to review existing cumulative impacts literature on methods applied elsewhere in the world, to produce design principles for a scalable cumulative impacts approach
and a synthesis of current benchmark methods and gaps in methods that must be filled to deliver Australian needs. And the second part being a global ERA review to identify cumulative impacts seen in other fisheries, with the specific focus of this review as specified by the AFMA led ERA/ERM working group – including looking: (i) at the assessment methods used elsewhere
(ii) their information needs and context
(iii) the strengths and weaknesses of the different approaches
(iv) synergies and efficiencies that can be adopted
and (v) recommend cost-effect ERA/ERM integration of additional methods that have been found to be appropriate given an AFMA context.
2. Characterise cumulative issues complicating cumulative impact assessments and, via a methods scan, deliver a list of options for addressing these issues
3. Develop a cumulative impacts framework that structures the sequence of analyses done for each assessment based on the characteristics of the sectors and ecological components involved– target, bycatch and protected species, and habitats and ecological communities
4. Perform an Australia-wide cumulative impacts assessment, with fishery-specific results, for (i) commonwealth fisheries across ecological components, (ii) indigenous and recreational sectors that interact with commonwealth fisheries for these components and (iii) and state and recreational fisheries where they overlap with Commonwealth fisheries.

Final report

Authors: E.A. Fulton Piers Dunstan Rowan Treblico
Final Report • 6.18 MB
2018-020-DLD.pdf

Summary

The world is changing more rapidly than any one individual can track. The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (1999) (EPBC Act) requires for all human activities, such as fisheries, to be sustainable not only in isolation but in combination with other anthropogenic activities and the general state of the environment. It is difficult for fishery managers and operators to comply with this requirement without appropriate assessment methods. In addition, trying to understand the complete state of an ecosystem and all its interacting parts is a substantial and challenging task, especially for a nation with national waters as large and diverse as Australia’s.
In response researchers from the CSIRO and the University of Adelaide set about reviewing existing tools used to undertake Ecological Risk Assessments (ERAs) or Cumulative Effects Assessments (CEAs). This information then formed the basis for developing a new Cumulative Effects Assessment framework which was applied to 409 species around Australia to understand what the cumulative effects of fisheries are on Australia’s marine systems. This understanding and the recommendations made around strengthening existing assessment methods used by the Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA) and other fisheries regulatory agencies will place Australia in a better place to ensure it is not only meeting regulatory requirements, but supporting sustainable industries and helping to coordinate across government agencies to safeguard healthy marine ecosystems into Australia’s future.
Final Report • 90.95 MB
2018-020 Appendices 5, 6, 7 and 8.pdf
Final Report • 5.33 MB
2018-020 Appendix 3 Review of ERA.pdf
Final Report • 3.02 MB
2018-020 Appendix 4 Review of Cumulative Effects Assessments.pdf
Environment
PROJECT NUMBER • 2017-047
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Understanding environmental and fisheries factors causing fluctuations in mud crab and blue swimmer crab fisheries in northern Australia to inform harvest strategies

This project investigated relationships between environmental factors and harvests of crabs in the Gulf of Carpentaria (GoC), northern Australia. Desktop correlative analyses clearly indicated that recent fluctuations in the catches of Giant Mud Crabs in the GoC are most likely driven by...
ORGANISATION:
Department of Primary Industries (QLD)
TAGS
Reproduction
Rac Qld
Rac Nt
Population Dynamics
Oceanography
SPECIES
Blue Swimmer Crab
Mud Crabs
View Filter

Research

Category

Species

Organisation