Study tour participants will travel to various locations around the Gulf of Mexico to meet with Petroleum Industry members, as well as regulators. The purpose is to gain an understanding of the decommissioning landscape and regulatory environment around the Rigs-to-Reefs program, including any new policy developments. Amongst this, personnel will visit some of the offshore infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM).

There will also be an opportunity to meet with local stakeholders, other regulators and the local seafood industry to understand their views on the Rigs-to-Reefs program and the impact on their fishing experiences. As a community organisation and regulator, this would be very insightful and provide immense value to Recfishwest and DPIRD respectively. In addition, it will have national application to the seafood industry and assist fisheries in becoming a major stakeholder in the $50B emerging Australian decommissioning industry.

Following the study tour, Recfishwest and DPIRD personnel will attend the 12th International Conference on Artificial Reefs and Related Aquatic Habitats (CARAH) in Santa Marta, Colombia. This international conference focuses on the study, development, and management of artificial reefs and aquatic habitats. These collectives typically bring together researchers, practitioners, and policymakers from around the world to share knowledge, present research findings, and discuss best practices.

These conferences aim to enhance collaboration, and attendees usually include marine biologists, ecologists, oceanographers, and representatives from non-government organisations and government agencies.

There is a great opportunity at CARAH for Recfishwest personnel to present on the outcomes of FRDC Project 2021-055 and extend upon FRDC Project 2014-005 by sharing Recfishwest’s own experiences in the artificial reef space. Sharing artificial reef knowledge from Australia will help to foster good working relationships at the international level and may contribute towards shared goals of sustainable fisheries management.

Objectives of the project include:
1. Gather knowledge and experiences of projects, assets and Rigs to Reefs policy and research outcomes in the Gulf of Mexico.
2. Meet with United States regulators to learn about the management of offshore oil and gas operations and alternative decommissioning. Identify risks to Government and marine environment from leaving decommissioned infrastructure in situ and potential mitigation measures.
3. Meet with stakeholders and end-users to get a local view on decommissioning.
4. Gather knowledge on international policy, legislative frameworks, research and management with regards to artificial reefs and aquatic habitats.
5. Share knowledge and experience from an Australian context.
6. Create a network of international artificial reef experts, including the establishment of an international artificial reef committee.
7. Bring this knowledge and these connections back to Australia to grow community and regulator capacity around artificial reefs and assist with alternative decommissioning opportunities and policy development.

In order to support a greater degree of systems thinking in its advisory committees, it is proposed to expose all committee members to the potential approaches to priority setting through a systems lens and benefits of these approaches, and then work with a subset of Research Advisory Committees [and possibly others] to test how bringing tools such as theory of change into their deliberations could assist them to deliver better designed priorities. Working specifically towards theories of change in the committee processes, at appropriate levels of complexity, is expected to provide (i) a context to making approaches of different committee members more explicit, (ii) a basis for better design logic, and (iii) a way of more readily communicating the committee's priorities. The focus of this approach on identifying and working back from ultimate objectives helps frame what may legitimately be narrow priorities in a wider analysis of system drivers such as incoherent policy environments or climate change and thus enable larger agendas to be built around such issues across FRDC. An explicit emphasis on barriers, enablers and assumptions, as well as what is necessary and sufficient to achieve the objectives, also provides a strong basis for evaluating progress and learning. Together these attributes are anticipated to achieve the intent of supporting better FRDC priority setting and increased impact for its stakeholders.