There is an urgent need to reflect on the current state of fisheries resource sharing in Australia and how it can meet future demands. Over the past 20 years individual Australian jurisdictions have developed and implemented resource sharing arrangements. These generally apply to commercial and recreational fisheries, and in some cases indigenous cultural fishers. The resource sharing arrangements stem from the objectives of fisheries legislation in Australia which is based on the principles of ESD that include consideration of all fishery resource users in the management of fisheries. Understandably when management resources are limited the focus is on those having the greatest impact on fish stock which for most species is the commercial sector, and sometimes the recreational sector. The use of OCS provisions in fisheries legislation was both an effort to simplify commercial fisheries management and reduce the need to have resource sharing arrangements. While this was largely successful it has run its course due to the value of commercial rights ($billions) that have now accrued under current OCS agreements making it almost impossible to make further significant changes. Alongside these developments a component of the recreational fishing sector has been increasing its range and capacity to catch fish using larger boats and technology similar to that employed by some commercial fishers. This has led to traditionally commercial species being accessed by recreational fishers with growing concerns from the former sector about their fishing future. Various policies and statutes have been implemented by the states/NT in an effort to allocate the shares of a fish stock. This has become easier as a growing number of fish stocks are subject to TACs with the commercial fishers subject to ITQs and recreational fishers to increasingly stock-specific possession limits. Despite this those states/NT who have implemented resource sharing have experienced its contentious, costly and drawn out nature, and are only starting to confront stocks which cross both jurisdictions and fishing sectors. It is time to reflect on experience to date and find the best way to manage fisheries resource sharing in the future.

Integration of recreational fishing (RF) into harvest strategies (HS) is necessary for many fisheries in Australia, to account for catches that can equal or exceed commercial catch for some key species and to address biological and experiential objectives of the RF sector. Both the Productivity Commission’s report Marine Fisheries and Aquaculture (2016) and the ICES Report from the Working Group Recreational Fishing Surveys (2018) recommend formal integration of RF into stock assessments and harvest strategies. Failure to do so puts sustainable management goals and legislated state and Commonwealth fisheries requirements at risk.

Equitable and quantitative inclusion of RF in harvest strategies is rare. This stems from a traditional focus on the commercial sector and budgetary challenges involved with representatively sampling RF. It is therefore unclear: 1) what types of RF data and monitoring best service stock assessments, (2) which data also track indicators of recreational objectives (often related to the fishing experience), and (3) how to integrate harvest strategy components for multiple sectors. The need to address these knowledge gaps was highlighted by the FRDC priority research call in 2018 - “Integrating recreational fishery data into harvest strategies for multi-sector fisheries in New South Wales”. NSW provides an important test case for addressing issues around RF integration that are faced by most jurisdictions.

Harvest strategy development for multi-sector fisheries requires a transparent and defensible process due to complexities in addressing diverse objectives and apprehension among stakeholder groups. Structured workshops that use easily-understandable, interactive decision support tools and involve independent experts and stakeholder representatives are likely to provide best outcomes. ‘FishPath’ is a leading harvest strategy decision support tool and “bottom up” engagement philosophy that allows experts and stakeholders to interactively contribute to harvest strategy development in a transparent workshop setting. However, it requires additional development in recreational and multi-sector contexts.

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.