This bursary will deliver against one of Recreational Fishing Research’s RD&E priorities this year: “Upskilling current and emerging leaders within the recreational fishing community”. The bursary will also deliver against the FRDC nominated RD&E priority of “People development”. The National Conference is an excellent opportunity to bring young leaders together to learn about and discuss topical issues and the applications of citizen science to the future of recreational fishing.

Engagements with the Australian Recreational Fishing Foundation, and representatives from several state peak bodies have indicated there is a real need to create more learning and development opportunities for current and emerging leaders in the community. This proposal will outline how state peak bodies and the recreational fishing community will be engaged with the aim of sending 2 representatives from each state to the National Conference. This project will give bursary recipients a forum to share their goals and visions for recreational fishing with other leaders before the conference, mentorship during the conference itself, and a platform to share their learning and intentions after the conference.

The ARFF Tackle Box project is funded through the ‘our marine parks’ grants funded by Parks Australia. The project aims to develop a recreational fishing app to collect data from scheduled recreational fishing competitions around Australia with the aim of being able to provide data on the interactions of recreational fishers with Australia’s Commonwealth Marine Parks. So far, the application has 1049 unique users, used for 9 fishing events, and has had data input for 1905 fish and 85 Photo only competition entries.
A real and meaningful opportunity exists for ARFF to lead the national recreational fishing community by introducing some simple retooling of the ARFF Tackle Box app and get on the front foot. There will be a push from some groups to keep people fishing but the reality is we need to be responsible right now. At this point, I think this is a moment FRDC can shine as well by supporting with funding as I am told there is considerable funds still available with the Rec Fish Research budget. Also, the government has subtly announced fiscal stimulus packages for sports and arts soon to keep the population engaged and there maybe potential to tap into both sporting/recreation and mental health funding. We have received offers of help to apply for these funding opportunities by professionals in these fields when they become available.
The proposal is to revise the current model and focus on the stash of data that exists already on people’s phones and keeping people engaged at home so that when the crisis passes, they are ready to go on our network. Capitalising on the low hanging fruit without fishers actively fishing and easily reach a user target of ten thousand people in a matter of weeks and potentially One hundred thousand users within 6 months without leaving home. This consists of 5 key elements:

• Fantasy/Photo only competition where people submit what they have on their phones from previous fishing trips before ARFF’s “quarantine at home/fish within the rules” policy came into effect.
• Community voting, engagement rather than “scoreboards”. It actively engages the community without the need to leave home.
• Keeping people connected with regular briefings and interactions with the states and regio

Co-management is an arrangement whereby responsibilities and obligations for sustainable fisheries management are negotiated, shared and delegated at appropriate levels between government, recreational fishers, Aboriginal traditional fishers, the commercial fishing industry and other key stakeholders such as conservation groups (Neville 2008).

The Minister’s Recreational Fishing Advisory Council (MRFAC) was formed to improve dialogue and communication between recreational fishers and Government. The primary role of the MRFAC is to provide feedback and advice to government on recreational fishing development issues, initiatives and policies that impact the recreational fishing sector. The MRFAC strives to pursue opportunities to improve the co-management arrangements for the recreational fishery.

In 2010/11 an engagement project was undertaken by PIRSA to better understand what recreational fishing means to people and what future they want for their sector. Discussions generated consistent themes and issues of concern to recreational fishers, including sustainable fishing, ongoing access, funding and leadership, governance, education and promotion of the sector.

The outputs from this project identified opportunities for incorporating 'grass roots' input from the recreational sector into fisheries management processes in South Australia (Rowling et al. in prep) must include public consultation opportunities and participation in (1) technical working groups; (2) regional recreational committees; & (3) community forums.

This project aims to enhance these jurisdictional-based opportunities by increasing national-level capacity building opportunities for members of the South Australian community. In addition to the personal development aspect, the ability to create connections and links to the recreational community leaders from other states and territories will be invaluable to the future stewarding of the South Australian Recreational Fishing community.