387 results
Industry

National Recreational Fishing Forum Series (2025-2029)

Project number: 2024-048
Project Status:
Current
Budget expenditure: $300,000.00
Principal Investigator: Cassie Price
Organisation: Australian Recreational Fishing Foundation (ARFF)
Project start/end date: 27 Mar 2025 - 31 Aug 2029
Contact:
FRDC

Need

ARFF proposes to run a 1-day National Recreational Fishing Forum on Tuesday 22nd July 2025. With the set up and additional meetings around recreational fishing to be held on Wed 23rd, the AFTA Trade Show held on Thurs 24th, Fri 25th and Saturday 26th. Allowing participants to travel to the event on Monday 21st and home on Sunday 27th (if not prior). Followed by Annual events in the two years following.

Target Audience/s – Leaders in recreational fishing sector, future leaders of recreational fishing sector, key leaders of other fishing sectors (commercial wild and indigenous), decision makers in governments/departments relevant to recreational fishing. We expect between 150-300 participants.

ARFF will engage a conference organising agency (preferred proposal attached) on the Gold Coast, and set up a forum organising committee from their broader membership. Together they will;
- Determine the logistics of the location and set up, and alignment with AFTA events
- Set up online information and registration
- Promote broadly to recreational fishing groups, peak bodies and recreational fishers
- Determine a program, themes/topics and call for speakers
- Run the event smoothly including all pre event and post event logistics

FRDC will have the opportunity to receive,
- A place on the organising committee
- A mutually agreed number of complimentary registrations
- Any signage provided by FRDC for the forum on stage or at strategic meeting places in the forum break-out/gathering areas
- Logo on all materials, both hard copy and digital including conference website
- Ability to promote the event

Digital Campaign: Innovation, sustainability, labour retention in Western Australian inshore fisheries - National video stories investment

Project number: 2022-209
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $182,505.00
Principal Investigator: Darryl P. Anderson
Organisation: Anvil Media
Project start/end date: 13 Jul 2023 - 30 Jan 2024
Contact:
FRDC

Need

FRDC has an already developed video and image library, however, does not have the resources to keep it supplied with new and relevant images, or to produce a series of short video clips and capture professional photos to showcase the innovation and sustanability of Australia's commercial fisheries. This is planned as a Phase #1 proof of concept project focusing on fisheries in 3 states: WA, SA and Queensland.

There is a need to produce a digital campaign that encapsulates the stories of commercial fishers and the role of their seafood supply locally and outside of Australia. These fisheries, their people, their fishing techniques and their markets have changed considerably over time. This presents an opportunity to showcase these changes –the new fisheries, the innovations and the inspiring young people taking over the reins.

This project is well aligned with the FRDC’s Strategic R&D priorities, and aims to build community, trust, respect and value (FRDC R&D Plan 2020-2025: Outcome 5) by providing foundational information and support services (FRDC R&D Plan 2020-2025: Enabling Strategy V).

Objectives

1. Increase the awareness of innovation and sustainability in wild catch seafood producers and their link to ongoing local seafood supply.
2. Increase the socio-economic development in coastal fishing communities.
3. Improve social acceptability and perception of the people, products, and organisations who are part of the regions featured in the series.

Website

Website • 2025-01-22
Take a Deep Dive_FRDC

Summary

This project developed a suite of videos that showcased an unbiased and authentic perspective on what the commercial wild catch sector looks like from the fishers' perspective. Through a series of interviews, each video focuses on the themes of - career opportunities, sustainability within wild catch fishing, innovation across the sector and its socio-economic benefits.
 
The videos were used in a social media campaign "Take a deep dive into wild catch fishing" with further details on the campaign and the videos available on the FRDC website here: https://www.frdc.com.au/take-deep-dive-wildcatch-fishing
People
Communities
People

Fishing and Aquaculture Workforce Capability Framework

Project number: 2022-153
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $127,997.50
Principal Investigator: Deborah C. Prentice
Organisation: RM Consulting Group (RMCG)
Project start/end date: 2 May 2023 - 7 Mar 2024
Contact:
FRDC

Need

The objective of this foundational work is to collaborate with industry to produce a Fishing and Aquaculture Workforce Capability Framework. The Framework will be used by fishing and aquaculture sectors / communities for workforce planning and career mapping. It will support a more strategic and consistent approach to workforce planning. This in turn, will enable industry to build its capacity through better understanding of capability needs.

In addition to the universal challenges associated with a tight labour market (e.g. attracting people, barriers to entry, addressing skills needs), the industry is operating in a changing environment. Other challenges and opportunities for the fishing and aquaculture sectors include:
• Adapting to climate change
• Biosecurity
• Managing resources efficiently
• Meeting sustainability standards / social license to operate
• Moving to a circular economy
• Managing global supply chains (developing traceability, addressing counterfeit)
• Competing with other proteins
• New markets through free trade agreements
• Adopting digital technology, and;
• Attracting and retaining people to drive responses to changes that impact on the F&A community.

The AgriFood Supply Chain Resilience report (KPMG, 2022) identified ‘labour supply, wellbeing and succession’ as one of the significant stresses for seafood supply chains. Other significant stresses were weather and climate change, cold chain and freight space availability, sustainability and social licence, pests and disease and market access.

Fish Forever (2030 vision for Australia’s fishing and aquaculture community) highlights opportunities for the F&A community and contains outcomes under each of the following missions:
1. Growth for enduring prosperity
2. Best practices and production systems
3. A culture that is inclusive and forward thinking
4. Equitable and secure resource access
5. Society and consumers trust, respect and value.

This project will identify the capability needs (current and future) to address these challenges and opportunities. Further, it will support industry, to attract and retain people and to provide pathways to build capability. Sectors will be better informed as to how to address capability needs.

Addressing these needs will ensure industry is better equipped to respond to changes, challenges and opportunities that impact the fishing and aquaculture communities. The fishing and aquaculture map (FRDC website) highlights the “complex systems behind Indigenous, commercial and recreational fishing and aquaculture in Australia and how the elements are connected”. It also highlights how issues or events in one part of the system can have impacts on other sectors. Therefore, industry needs to be prepared for changes.

This project will engage with all key F&A sectors to ensure the capability framework is industry-driven and collectively owned. In addition, the project approach is designed to utilise existing sector/industry plans and not replace existing frameworks. RMCG will work collaboratively with industry.

Objectives

1. Development of a fit-for-purpose capability framework for the fisheries and aquaculture industries and individual organisations
2. Engagement and collaboration with key industry stakeholders to enable adoption and use of the framework
3. Establishment of a shared process and terminology for talking about capabilities throughout the fishing and aquaculture industry
4. Mapped critical capabilities highlighting gaps and opportunities for collaborative action

Final report

Authors: Deborah Prentice Sasha Brightman Natasha Frazer and Anne-Maree Boland
Final Report • 2024-06-01 • 14.11 MB
2022-153-DLD.pdf

Summary

In 2023 RM Consulting Group (RMCG) was contracted by FRDC to develop a Fisheries and Aquaculture (F&A) Workforce Capability Framework (hereafter referred to as the Framework) that would be used as a high-level, standardised tool across all F&A sectors. The FRDC and other groups in leadership roles for Australia’s F&A sectors have highlighted workforce development as a key opportunity and priority.
We have created a comprehensive Framework that captures the enablers (the internal and external systems and culture that either help or hinder employees and businesses to thrive and support growth in people’s capability) and the people capabilities (knowledge, skills, abilities and behaviours) that should be considered as a starting point in F&A workforce planning.
The intention of this project was to collaborate with industry to produce a F&A Workforce Capability Framework. This has been achieved, as demonstrated through the many and diverse stakeholders engaged and the attached Framework. The stakeholders interviewed and engaged had some interest and/or experience in workforce issues so were able to add value to the development of the Framework. They will also be able to champion the subsequent  implementation of projects that emerge from the Framework.
The Framework is a step towards addressing the above challenges and opportunities. It provides a broad, high-level approach to thinking about how to  meet the needs and aspirations of businesses and organisations.
The case studies included in this document offer real-world examples of where innovative thinking has been used to solve issues around workforce  planning, attraction and retention of staff, and broader geographical and social challenges.
The research and the development of this Framework emphasises the need to think differently, innovate and enable collaboration.

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