Estimating the abundance of School Shark in Australia using close kin genetic methods
Seafood CRC: synopsis of Amoebic Gill Disease (AGD) research to date and review/recommendation of future AGD related R&D directions including the development of a vaccine for AGD
SCRC: Australian aquaculture genetic support capability
Seafood CRC: Commercial production of all-female reproductively sterile triploid Giant Tiger prawns (Penaeus monodon): Assessing their commercial performance in ponds.
Best practice guidelines for Australian fisheries management agencies
There is a need for greater efficiency in government while reducing red and green tape, simplifying regulation and pursuing sustainable and profitable fisheries. In doing so, fisheries management also aims to gain and maintain the trust and confidence of fishery stakeholders and the general public by ensuring management is a transparent and participatory process. The current operating environment for fisheries and fishing businesses involves a range of practices and policies applied by a range of regulators with lack of consistency at whole of government level and among jurisdictions considerable duplication in process. There would be considerable benefits to reducing this complexity by adopting nationally agreed standards for fisheries management. While this is clearly a task for government, a strategic research project could assist by reviewing existing international standards and domestic arrangements, and by laying the groundwork for a national debate about consistent and agreed fisheries management standards that would reduce costs for industry, simplify the task for fishery regulators, while simultaneously meeting public expectations for transparent processes and good fisheries management.
Final report
Integrating fishing industry knowledge of fishing grounds with scientific data on seabed habitats for informed spatial management and ESD evaluation in the SEF
The SEF fishing industry, particularly the trawl sector, has a need to be proactive in the face of growing community attention to trawling based on its potential to modify benthic habitat and threaten biodiversity values. This need is focussed by the timetable for the regional marine planning process (the end of 2001 for the SEF region), as well as to meet provisions under Schedule 4 of the Wildlife Protection (Regulation of Experts and Imports) Act and the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. Without solid information or a developed industry position regarding the spatial management of its fishing grounds, the fishing industry will have minimal ability to engage in this process as active partners.
The SEF fishing industry holds strong beliefs about the importance of particular seabed habitats for is continued profitability (Prince, Baelde and Wright FRDC 71/114) and has a need to develop a mature relationship with the National Ocean's Office and Environment Australia. This relationship and the information formailsed by this project will enable the industry to have input in the near-term to the Regional Marine Planning process and to certify their seafood products for expertation under the Wildlife Protection Act.
The outcomes of this project will have direct relevance t:
advancing AFMA's legislated aims of sustaining biological production and economic efficiency
seeking certification for inclusion on Schedule 4 of the Wildlife protection Act
attaining ESD accreditation in the longer term
responding to the near term needs of participating in the process of developing Environment Australia's South East Regional Marine Plan.
The finely detailed and annotated maps to be generated by this project will provide a template on which the distribution of fishing effort and catches can be plotted, and will form the basis of industry proposals to introduce a spatial management to their fishery. Without these maps and the process supported by this project there is a risk that uninformed spatial management of fishing effort would contribute neither to conservation goals nor the fishing industry and could be to the detriment of both. Moreover, inappropriate spatial management would be counter-productive to ESD planning for the SEF.