PROJECT NUMBER
•
2024-027
PROJECT STATUS:
CURRENT
ORGANISATION:
Victorian Fisheries Authority (VFA) Queenscliff
SPECIES
57 results
PROJECT NUMBER
•
2022-007
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED
ORGANISATION:
Fishwell Consulting Pty Ltd
A South Australian gulfs and coastal ecosystem model to optimise multi-species fisheries management in a changing environment
Project number:
2018-011
Project Status:
Current
Budget expenditure:
$218,932.00
Principal Investigator:
Simon D. Goldsworthy
Organisation:
University of Adelaide
Project start/end date:
3 Jun 2019
-
17 Dec 2020
Contact:
FRDC
The SA State Government has made a commitment to reform the Marine Scalefish Fishery (MSF) that aims to provide long-term sustainability of key stocks for both recreational and commercial fisheries, and unlock the industries economic potential. The key reforms include a voluntary buy-back scheme targeting the removal of at least 30% of commercial licences and the introduction of new zoning and quota management regulations. The timeframe for the reforms will be determined in consultation with the industry. Details on the implementation strategy have yet to be developed, but will need to be underpinned by extensive stakeholder consultation and backed by research that provides confidence that among the approaches considered, those chosen will best deliver the intent of the reforms.
This project aims to develop an SA Gulfs and Coastal ecosystem model to provide a Management Strategy Evaluation (MSE) tool to assess and optimise a range of reform scenarios. The project will link in closely with FRDC 2017/014 (Informing structural reform in the MSF), utilising many of its key outputs, including time series of spatial distribution of catch and effort, social-economic performance, and reform implementation scenarios. This project also will extend the investigation by integrating environmental time-series data to evaluate changes in productivity over time, identified as a potential factor in declining fisheries catches in the GSV ecosystem (FRDC 2013/031). Identifying the causes of productivity loss and its impact on fish production are important to resolve, especially in the context of the MSF reforms. Ultimately, the project aims to provide decision support tools to assess and evaluate the performance of diverse fisheries management strategies, and how these may perform under varying production regimes. Such an approach will provide a platform to evaluate and optimise the effectiveness of management strategies, and help ensure the fishery reforms achieve their key objectives.
1. Develop an SA Gulfs and Coastal Ecosystem model to provide a MSE tool to inform and optimise multi-regional management, quotas for multi-species fisheries and multi-sector harvest strategies
2. Use the model to run scenarios to assess, evaluate and optimise Marine Scalefish Fishery reform options
3. Assess potential production loss issues, and evaluate how different MSF reform options may perform under different future production scenarios
PROJECT NUMBER
•
2018-212
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED
Establishing an industry recovery strategy for the Area 3 zone of the Western Australian Abalone Managed Fishery
The Southern Seafood Producers (Western Australia) Association in conjunction with the Abalone Industry Association of Western Australia hosted a two-day workshop (the workshop) at the Swan Yacht Club in East Fremantle on the 12th and 13th of June 2019. The aim of the workshop was to...
ORGANISATION:
Southern Seafood Producers (WA) Association
SPECIES
PROJECT NUMBER
•
2018-021
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED
ORGANISATION:
CSIRO Geelong Waurn Ponds
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
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.
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
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.
Implementation workshop for the effective adoption of the outcomes from the SESSF Declining Indicators project
Project number:
2018-077
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure:
$33,639.76
Principal Investigator:
George Day
Organisation:
Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA)
Project start/end date:
14 Mar 2019
-
30 Oct 2019
Contact:
FRDC
The recent Southern and Eastern Scalefish and Shark Fishery (SESSF) Declining Indicators project (FRDC 2016-146) culminated in a successful workshop discussion involving effective contribution and engagement from all fishery stakeholders with particularly good industry attendance and engagement. The Declining Indicators project entailed the presentation of a series of subject matter papers covering seven focus areas:
- legislative / management impediments
- fleet capacity and characteristics
- fisher behaviour and vessel operation
- climate change and oceanographic conditions
- costs of production and markets
- quota ownership and trading
- the assessment process.
At the workshop numerous hypotheses were tested through presentation, discussion and survey approaches. This resulted in a range of significant outcomes recommended for adoption to improve the sustainable, efficient and cost-effective management of the SESSF.
In conjunction with the current project, there have been other recent strategic projects which elucidate current issues in the SESSF and their potential to be addressed in future SESSF management: FRDC 2014-203 ‘SESSF Monitoring and Assessment – Strategic Review’ (Knuckey et. al 2017); FRDC 2016-139 ‘Decadal-scale projection of changes in Australian fisheries stocks under climate change’ (Fulton et al. 2018); and ‘FRDC 2016-059 Adaptation of Commonwealth fisheries management to climate change’ (Rayns et al, underway). There is a need for the outcomes and recommendations of all of these project to be considered together to inform future management of the SESSF and in particular to help inform the design of the upcoming project: FRDC 2018-021 ‘Development and evaluation of multi-species harvest strategies in the SESSF’.
The new proposed project, an implementation workshop, will draw together the outcomes of these projects to be assessed, conveyed to those outside the Declining Indicators group, and implemented into the fishery.
1. Drawing together, evaluating and developing a prioritised list of actions from the SESSF from a number of interrelated projects that have, or are close to being, finalised. Primarily the Declining Indicators project (FRDC 2016-146) and SESSF Monitoring and Assessment Review Project (FRDC 2014/203)
2. Informing the project team of FRDC proposed project Development and evaluation of multi-species harvest strategies in the SESSF (FRDC 2018-021) about key priorities and preferred approaches relevant to the development of a revised harvest stategy.
3. Providing information that will inform a SESSF data needs workshop, to be organised and funded by AFMA, expected to be held in February and March 2019.
4. Effectively communicating agreed priorities for the fishery across industry and broader SESSF stakeholders to promote awareness, understanding and acceptance.
Final report
ISBN:
978-1-877044-40-3
Authors:
George Day
Dr Ian Knuckey
Daniel Corrie
Brodie Macdonald
Final Report
•
2020-06-01
•
2.66 MB
2018-077-DLD.pdf
The key outcome of this project is the implementation plan at Appendix 1 which provides a comprehensive, prioritised list of actions for the SESSF as it transitions to a new harvest strategy framework. The implementation plan also provides a framework for ongoing governance and reporting to ensure the benefits of recent research can be realised.
This project ensured that views of stakeholders were taken into account in the effective adoption of research outcomes. The high level of stakeholder engagement has increased support for pursuing the resultant list of actions.
Fundamental to the transition of the SESSF is the current FRDC project to revise and update the SESSF Harvest Strategy Framework (Development and evaluation of multi-species harvest strategies in the SESSF (FRDC 2018-021)). Many of the recommendations from the implementation plan at Appendix 1 will help inform that project.
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