A White Spot Disease R&D Needs Workshop held in Brisbane on Wednesday 18 October 2017 providing a forum to unpack research and other issues amongst industry with respect to the detection of WSSV. The government and industry response at the meeting demonstrated gaps in the wild harvest sector’s knowledge of biosecurity concepts.

There is a need to greatly increase industry capacity to respond to biosecurity threats. This project proposal is a people development project aimed at extending the work of the BILO and significantly boost industry preparedness.

The purpose of this project application is to address the information and education gaps identified amongst the wild catch commercial fishing sector. In consultation with industry stakeholders and the QSIA, Millstream Productions have been approached to developed a series of video clip production plans (attached to this application).

The Biosecurity Act 2014 (Qld) section 23 sub-sections states that industry businesses have an obligation (a general biosecurity obligation) to take all reasonable and practical measures to prevent or minimise the biosecurity risk. This project will help industry to do this by offering an information platform that is tailored to industry needs and will provide video and written material to educate industry regarding its biosecurity obligations.

This project has broad based support from industry, biosecurity experts and government (letters of support attached).

1) Industry – Marshall Betzel, President, Queensland Seafood Marketers Association (QSMA).
2) Biosecurity experts – Dr Matt Landos and Dr Ben Diggles.
3) Government – Dr Stephen Wesche, Planning and Policy Manager, White Spot Disease Program, Biosecurity Queensland, Department of Agriculture and Fisheries.

The project compliments the work developed by the BILO. The linking of paper and video material will provide industry with multiple platforms to engage on the critical issue of biosecurity.

Given increasing complexity in fisheries management and additional scrutiny on managers, there is a need for fisheries managers from the different jurisdictions to meet as a group to exchange ideas and initiatives and build networks. The Australian Fisheries Management Forum (AFMF), comprised of the respective heads of Commonwealth and State/Territory management agencies, supports the need for such a forum.

Similar cross-fertilisation forums exist between researchers through the Australian Society for Fish Biology (ASFB) and the National Compliance Committee for compliance officers.

It has been a considerable period since fisheries managers workshops were last held. Previous workshops occurred in the 1980s and early 1990s. In March 2014, a two-day national fisheries management workshop was held in Adelaide at the South Australian Aquatic Sciences Centre. This workshop was overseen by the AFMF’s Fisheries Management Sub-Committee (FMSC), with funding support from the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation (FRDC). Recommendations arising from this workshop included convening a subsequent fisheries managers workshop in 12-24 months and the formation of an Australian Professional Fisheries Management Society.

As an interim arrangement pending the potential formation of a professional fisheries managers society as a chapter of ASFB, the FMSC has agreed to hold another fisheries managers workshop, which Queensland will host in October 2017.

Future workshops will be held to coincide with ASFB annually (starting in 2018).