32 results

Tactical Research Fund: Providing social science objectives and indicators to compare management options in the Queensland trawl planning process

Project number: 2009-100
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $95,000.00
Principal Investigator: Cathy M. Dichmont
Organisation: CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere Hobart
Project start/end date: 31 May 2010 - 29 Oct 2011
Contact:
FRDC

Need

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.

Objectives

2. Test and verify applicability of social objectives and indicators using semi-quantitative analyses with stakeholder groups
3. Identify social objective and indicators of relevance to the Queensland trawl fishery

Final report

ISBN: 9780643109223
Author: Catherine Dichmont
People
PROJECT NUMBER • 2019-124
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Shared science and Indigenous knowledge to support fisheries capacity building in Torres Strait

This report presents the results of a collaborative science capacity building project involving CSIRO researchers and Torres Strait Islander Fishing Industry representatives. Project participants worked together in the development and delivery of science capacity building programs tailored to each...
ORGANISATION:
CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere Hobart
Environment
PROJECT NUMBER • 2012-021
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Trial and validation of Respondent-Driven Sampling as a cost-effective method for obtaining representative catch, effort, social and economic data from recreational fisheries

The objective of FRDC project 2012/021, “Trial and validation of Respondent-Driven Sampling as a cost-effective method for obtaining representative catch, effort, social and economic data from recreational fisheries” was to trial and validate the chain referral sampling method,...
ORGANISATION:
CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere Hobart
Industry
PROJECT NUMBER • 2017-159
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Retrospective assessment of ITQs to inform research needs and to improve their future design and performance

The use of transferable fishing rights has increased internationally over recent decades with most industrialised countries now using some form of individual transferable catch quota (ITQ) or individual transferable effort (ITE) system for at least some of their fisheries. Australia also has...
ORGANISATION:
CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere Hobart

Maximising net economic returns from a multispecies fishery

Project number: 2015-202
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $229,305.00
Principal Investigator: Sean Pascoe
Organisation: CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere Hobart
Project start/end date: 30 Jun 2015 - 28 Sep 2017
Contact:
FRDC

Need

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.

Objectives

1. Development of a methodology for maximising net economic return to a multispecies fishery as a whole, and with regard to by-catch and discard species
2. Development of a framework to operationalise the methodology into fisheries management objectives

Final report

ISBN: 978-1-4863-1076-0
Authors: Pascoe S. Hutton T. Hoshino E. Sporcic M. Yamazaki S. and Kompas T.
Final Report • 2018-06-01 • 1.45 MB
2015-202-DLD.pdf

Summary

Achieving fishery MEY may result in a reduction in net economic returns in a broader sense if the loss to consumers exceeds the gain to the industry. Such a loss may occur if supplies to the local market are reduced and prices paid by consumers increase. This results in a transfer of benefits from consumers to producers, which is considered undesirable in itself. However, if the loss to consumers is greater than the gain to producers then overall there is a loss of net economic returns. Similarly, the disutility associated
with bycatch in fisheries may also affect our interpretation of “optimal” yields if non‐monetary values are assigned. The “generic” multispecies bioeconomic model was used to estimate the impact on target fishing mortality rates of broadening the consideration of net economic returns to include also changes in consumer surplus and inclusion of non‐market values associated with bycatch. The model is run stochastically while maximising profit but varying the number of species caught, their biological characteristics and prices, fishing costs, price flexibilities, bycatch rates and values.

The results of the analysis were largely as expect, namely that including consumer benefits into the definition of MEY resulted in a higher optimal level of fishing effort and yield, while including non‐market costs associated with discards resulted in a lower optimal level of fishing effort and yield. The degree to which these factors affected the definition of MEY was, unsurprisingly, related to their overall magnitude relative to the benefits to the fishery.

Implementing MEY, once identified, also has several challenges. The study considered a range of harvest control rules, as well as other potential management options. The results of the model analysis suggest that “hockey‐stick” harvest control rules in multispecies fisheries may overly restrict the catch of species that are currently above their target biomass. Given the higher abundance, catch of these species is likely to result in increased discarding and lower economic returns than might otherwise be achieved. An alternative harvest control rule that allowed higher than “optimal” fishing mortality rates for species that were above their target biomass resulted in less discarding and higher economic returns.

Having quota on too many species may be counterproductive, as the fishery is largely constrained by the quota for the main species. Imposing quotas also on secondary species can result in a situation where a minor species becomes a “choke” species, restricting the total fishery for little benefit. Reducing the number of species subject to quota constraints to only those that were most important (in terms of revenue) resulted in improved economic performance of the fishery as well as lower levels of discarding. However, in the model changes in targeting ability of the fleet was not considered, so monitoring of fisher behaviour in response to proposed management regimes that only have a few species under quota would
be essential.
Blank
PROJECT NUMBER • 2017-214
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Comparative evaluation of Integrated Coastal Marine Management in Australia - Workshop

The need for Integrated Management (IM) of diverse marine activities is increasing, but there has been no agreed IM framework. In 2017 and 2018, a team of researchers collaborated to develop a framework for implementation and a ‘lens’ for evaluation of IM....
ORGANISATION:
CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere Hobart
Environment
PROJECT NUMBER • 2015-013
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Developing triple bottom line harvest strategies that include all environmental aspects for multi-sector fisheries

Based on the results of a comprehensive literature review and the collective expertise of the project team, we developed two alternative approaches with which to evaluate trade-offs between triple bottom line objectives and stakeholder preferences: a semi-quantitative multi-criteria decision...
ORGANISATION:
CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere Hobart

What could Australia’s total sustainable wild fisheries production be?

Project number: 2016-056
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $157,000.00
Principal Investigator: Richard Little
Organisation: CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere Hobart
Project start/end date: 29 Jun 2017 - 30 May 2018
Contact:
FRDC

Need

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.

Objectives

1. Develop a nationally agreed framework of methods to estimate sustainable yields
2. Review and identify species that may have potential for significant growth in catches
3. Application of methods to determine potential total sustainable yield from Australian fisheries
4. Identify next steps if a large potential increase in production is possible

Final report

ISBN: 978-1-925994-06-3
Authors: Smith D.C. Haddon M. Punt A.E. Gardner C. Little L.R. Mayfield S. O’Neill M. F. Saunders T. Stewart J. and B. Wise
Final Report • 2020-04-02 • 2.04 MB
2016-056-DLD.pdf

Summary

This project was a first attempt at estimating the total potential maximum sustainable yield (MSY) from Australia’s commercial fisheries. The project considered only key commercial species and selected by-product species. Estimating equilibrium MSY where there was a formal stock assessment was relatively easy, as the assessment models provide this information.  Where existing MSY estimates were available, these were used.  In other cases, a multi-level assessment framework for estimating MSY was developed and related software addressed data-rich to data-poor assessment methods. 

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