34 results
Communities
PROJECT NUMBER • 2018-053
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Enhancing the understanding of the value provided to fisheries by man-made aquatic structures

In 2018, the state’s recreational and commercial fishers (represented by the peak bodies Recfishwest and WAFIC) commissioned a program of research as part of a Fisheries Research Development Corporation project aimed at documenting the social and economic values and benefits that stakeholders...
ORGANISATION:
Curtin University
TAGS
Social Science
Social Science
Recreational Fishing
Rac Wa
Policy
Communities
Blank
People
PROJECT NUMBER • 2022-153
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Fishing and Aquaculture Workforce Capability Framework

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...
ORGANISATION:
RM Consulting Group (RMCG)
TAGS
Workforce
Leadership
Capacity Building
Communities
Environment
Environment
Communities
PROJECT NUMBER • 2020-088
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Quantifying inter-sectoral values within and among the Indigenous, commercial and recreational sectors

This study explored the extent to which values are shared (or not shared) by fishers across three key sectors (i.e., Indigenous, commercial and recreational). The study was run online using Q-Method Software (https://qmethodsoftware.com), a semi-quantitative technique used to explore human...
ORGANISATION:
Natural Capital Economics
TAGS
Values & Ethics
Social Science
Social Science
Resource Access And Allocation
Recreational Fishing

Non-market values to inform decision-making and reporting in fisheries and aquaculture – an audit and gap analysis

Project number: 2018-068
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $118,293.91
Principal Investigator: Louisa Coglan
Organisation: Queensland University of Technology (QUT)
Project start/end date: 3 Feb 2019 - 29 Jun 2020
Contact:
FRDC
TAGS
Resource Access And Allocation
Recreational Fishing
Policy
Non Market Values
Indigenous

Need

Most Australian fisheries policies require that fisheries management take account of the cumulative effect of all human users of marine resources, including professional, recreational and Indigenous Australian fishers. The triple bottom line (TBL) approach is the general framework used to assess performance against economic, social, and environmental dimensions. TBL requires articulation of these broad values, but these may be qualitatively assessed. Significant progress has been made in incorporating some of these elements into fisheries management decision, particularly prioritising different objectives of fishery management [e.g. 1, 2]. In some cases, development of semi-quantitative approaches have been used to assist in decision-making across these multiple dimensions [e.g. 3], including in some cases indigenous value [e.g. 4]. Recent research has also extended this focus to develop a robust articulation of Indigenous Australian customary fishing values to enable their inclusion when developing fisheries management policies [5].

Optimal decisions require the trade-off between costs and benefits to be considered. TBL approaches do not explicitly consider this trade-off, resulting in challenges in identifying optimal outcomes. Where these costs and benefits are expressed as explicit monetary values, assessing the trade-off requires deducting the expected costs from the expected benefits (commonly referred to as cost-benefit analysis (CBA)).

However, in fisheries, many costs and benefits do not have an explicit monetary value. Hence, decisions about the use and management of marine resources increasingly requires objective information on the non-market value of benefits (and costs). Some attention has been focused on the estimation of non-market values of recreational fishing [e.g. 6, 7], although only limited attempts to-date have been made to use these values in supporting management decision making [e.g. 8]. Many other values have not been quantified, and their use in fisheries management has not been fully explored.

Objectives

1. To support robust and defeasible evidence based decision-making in fisheries and aquaculture decision making that is understood and supported by key fisheries and aquaculture managers.
2. To provide managers with an understanding of the resources available to account for non-market values in fisheries and aquaculture decision making
3. To identify key research gaps and make recommendations related to the need for further empirical non-market valuation studies

Final report

ISBN: 978-1-925553-26-0
Authors: Louisa Coglan Sean Pascoe Gabriela Scheufele Samantha Paredes and Aimee Pickens
Final Report • 2021-03-19 • 3.77 MB
2018-068-DLD.pdf

Summary

This study examined the issues around non-market values requirements and identified potential sources of robust and defensible estimates of key values, including those generally viewed as difficult to measure.  
The project identified thirteen types of non-market values that fisheries and aquaculture managers considered as potentially important to their decision making. Of these, the top four involved values related to users of the fisheries resources, including fisher satisfaction, values to Indigenous Australian fishers, and the value of fish and experience to recreational fishers. The next four involved impacts of fishing on others, including habitats, species, local communities and other users of the marine environment.
The gap analysis identified that recent values for most of the values of potential use to fisheries and aquaculture management were unavailable. This limits the role of benefit transfers and identifies a need for further primary studies of non-market values.

Completing Australia’s First National Bycatch Report

Project number: 2018-114
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $165,000.00
Principal Investigator: Steve J. Kennelly
Organisation: IC Independent Consulting Pty Ltd
Project start/end date: 31 Dec 2018 - 30 Dec 2019
Contact:
FRDC
TAGS
Stock Assessment
Recreational Fishing
Modelling
Fishing Gear
Fisheries Management

Need

In the recently completed project 2015/208 “Developing a National Bycatch Reporting System”, we derived estimates of bycatch and discards for 4 case-study jurisdictions (with associated variances) as well as metrics regarding the quality of the data used. The jurisdictions done were New South Wales, Tasmania, Queensland and the Northern Territory. But that work completed only half the story. This present project is to complete the task by applying the methodology developed in the previous project to the remaining 4 jurisdictions: The Commonwealth, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia. By adding estimates from these jurisdictions to those derived earlier, this current project will produce the first complete, national bycatch report for the country. An advantage with this approach is that the new project will only cost a fraction of that of the previous project because most of the development work is complete. The result will be Australia's First National Bycatch Report and a process by which Australia's (and the world's) stakeholders can monitor and track Australia's management of bycatch. This should improve the standing of our fisheries internationally, to various eco-labelling organisations and the general public.

Objectives

1. Collect, synthesis and analyse catch, effort and bycatch data from the Commonwealth, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia
2. Derive bycatch estimates for general discards and ETP species, with associated variances and quality metrics for each jurisdiction
3. Combine the estimates from 2 above with those from the previous project to produce Australia's first National Bycatch Report

Final report

ISBN: 978-0-9924930-9-7
Author: Steven J Kennelly
Final Report • 2020-11-30 • 378.05 KB
2018-114-DLD.pdf

Summary

Bycatch (non-targeted organisms that are unintentionally caught when fishing for particular species or sizes of species) remains an important issue concerning the world’s fisheries. Discards are considered the most important component of bycatch because they represent a perceived wastage of seafood resources as well as the potential to include Threatened, Endangered and Protected Species (TEPS), attracting significant interest and controversy from many stakeholders. There is now growing acceptance and international, regional and national agreements and instruments that encourage and/or require governments to report on the status of bycatches.

This report that arose from this project and its precursor “Developing a National Bycatch Reporting System” (FRDC Project 2015-208) constitutes Australia’s first national attempt to report on bycatch from its commercial fisheries. It is the result of the application of a 5-step methodology developed in the first project.
This project has yielded: (i) a baseline to be used by Australia in the future to track performance in managing discards, TEPS interactions and the quality of its bycatch information; (ii) the identification of key gaps in information where future work to monitor and reduce discards should focus; and (iii) a methodology that may be used by other countries and jurisdictions to estimate and report on bycatch to various entities and processes including stock assessments, Ecosystem-based Fisheries Management initiatives, FAO’s Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, assessments by eco-labelling organisations, the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy and its Landing Obligation, as well as the most important stakeholders of all – the perpetual owners of all fisheries discards and TEPS – the general public.

Project products

Report • 2020-11-30 • 2.36 MB
2018-114 Australia's First National Bycatch Report.pdf

Summary

This report constitutes Australia’s first national attempt to report on bycatch from its commercial fisheries. It is the result of the application of the following 5-step methodology:
1. Identify all individual fisheries (and the fishing methods used in them) for each jurisdiction and the annual landings for each. Express these data as averages with associated standard errors (SEs).
2. Gather all available papers, reports and datasets on fisheries discards and TEPS interactions in each jurisdiction. From these, derive retained:discard ratios for each fishery/method and express these as averages (if multiple ratios exist) with associated SEs.
3. For those fisheries/methods that lack ratios in Step 2, identify and include any substitute ratios from similar fisheries/methods from other jurisdictions.
4. Multiply the average ratios from Steps 2 and 3 by the average landings data from Step 1 to obtain total estimated annual discards for each fishery/method and add these together to get jurisdictional totals with appropriate SEs.
5. Apply the steps in the USA’s Tier Classification Scheme 
 
This report has yielded: (i) a baseline to be used by Australia’s jurisdictions in the future to track performance in managing discards, TEPS interactions and the quality of bycatch information; (ii) the identification of key gaps in information where future work to monitor and reduce discards should focus; and (iii) a methodology that may be used by other countries and jurisdictions to estimate and report on bycatch to various entities and processes including stock assessments, Ecosystem-based Fisheries Management initiatives, FAO’s Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, assessments by eco-labelling organisations, the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy and its Landing Obligation, as well as the most important stakeholders of all – the perpetual owners of all fisheries discards and TEPS – the general public. 
View Filter

Research

Category

Species

Organisation