Fisheries management has mostly been directed by economic and ecological objectives. With the introduction of the call for triple bottom line assessments of industry and government performance, a need for social objectives has become apparent which has remained largely unaddressed in terms of integration into management plans for specific fisheries.

In addition, consideration of social impacts of different management options are very important for the Queensland trawl fishery. The reason for this is that the fishery ranges from having communities where trawling is the major source of income to the opposite case where trawling is only a minor component of the community activities and income. The fishery also spans almost the whole length of the eastern Queensland coast with a complex multi-species, multi-fleet fishery which is worth about $100M - Queensland's most valuable fishery. Management options need to balance community, economic and biological needs. Any changes to the management of the fishery can substantially change the biological status of stocks, fishery profitability but also equity between fleets and communities.

Queensland DEEDI are presently developing a new draft Plan for comment and input to this is essential and urgent.

There is therefore a need for specific social objectives and associated relevant indicators for Queensland DEEDI to use in the development of management plans and the assessment of them.

An objective of the Fisheries Management Act 1991 is ‘maximising the net economic returns to the Australian community from the management of fisheries’, which has been interpreted as achieving the biomass that, on average, produces maximum economic yield (BMEY) in the Commonwealth Fisheries Harvest Strategy 2007 and the more recent Borthwick (2012) and DAFF (2013) Reviews cited earlier.

To date, only two Australian fisheries (the Northern Prawn Fishery (Punt et al 2011) and the Great Australian Bight trawl fishery (Kompas et al 2013) have models suitable for assessing MEY. These are data rich fishery, both in terms of economic and biological information. Methods for estimating proxy target reference points in single and multispecies fisheries have recently been developed (FRDC 2011/200 and FRDC 2010/044) but not yet applied in any fishery. Other approaches have also been developed elsewhere (e.g. FRDC 2008/08). These methods have not accounted for environmental externalities, particularly in terms of bycatch and discards, which may affect the optimal outcome. A range of other complications were also identified during a technical review of economic issues (FRDC 2012/225) and the review of the Commonwealth Policy on fisheries bycatch.

Developing harvest strategies that maximise net economic returns is a different problem to that of identifying targets. The latter is an endpoint while the former is the process to achieve the end point. The purpose and aim of this project is to establish a practical and cost effective method for managing a multispecies fishery towards maximising net economic returns as a whole, taking into account non-target catches.

Australian fisheries are small by world standards, in terms of production, but have a large geographic, ecological, social and political footprint. Wild fisheries production averaged around 160,000 tonnes per annum between 2010-11 and 2012-13. The National Marine Science Plan notes that Australia needs to address our current and potential future gaps in food self-sufficiency and improve production as part of reducing our reliance on imports, as we currently import 72 per cent of our seafood. However, it has been reported in recent years that there is little scope for an overall increase in wild fisheries production. For example in Working Together: the National Fishing and Aquaculture RD&E Strategy 2010, it states “little opportunity exists to increase the volume from wild-catch fisheries”. Such statements have never been formally tested and could, if they are believed, constrain future investment by government and industry.
The aim of this project is to take the first national look at what sustainable national fisheries production could be. The project will consider catches of key commercial species at suitable target reference points. If, for a particular fishery or species, these are not identified then Bmsy will be the default. In addition, the potential for increased catches of selected by-product and by-catch species will also be considered. All jurisdictions will contribute to the project. The focus of this proposal is on the biological sustainability and limits to sustainable catches in the long term. Other factors such as whether there is a market for the potential production and whether the economic value will be optimal if production is maximized are clearly important, along with other market and economic issues, but will not be considered here.
This proposed project can be seen as a first stage. A second stage may be required if it is determined that there is potential for a large increase in production. A second stage project would look at species interactions (that could prevent all species being fished at their target reference points simultaneously), implications of an increased fishery footprint required to achieve the extra catch, and market issues.