A significant amount of work will be required over the next 3-5 years to incorporate ESD into ongoing fisheries management across Australia to complete this process. A number of studies are already in progress addressing some of the issues. These include the SCFA-FRDC study to develop the guidelines for reporting on ESD (FRDC 2000/145), the Seafood Services project (FRDC 2000/146) which is assisting fishers to develop EMS processes to improve their environmental standards. Moreover, a number of issues, such as those identified at the recent ESD case study workshop or in previous reviews, will require alterations to current studies but more generally the development of a suite of new projects. The issues to be addressed include:

developing relevant expertise to collect and interpret data for the social and economic components,
effective communication of the issues to all major stakeholder groups,
development of methods to ensure active participation of indigenous groups in the process,
developing the framework and the guidelines to enable the process to become a method of assessment, as well as a reporting system.
development of ecological indicators
testing of the robustness of currently used and proposed indicators

The effective coordination of all current and future ESD related projects will be essential if the ultimate aim of having a nationally agreed system is to be successful. Given that the majority of these projects are likely to be at least partly funded by FRDC provides the opportunity to supply the necessary coordination through the formation of an ESD “Sub-Program”.

Using the Sub-Program structure would result in all relevant projects being administered through a common system. Thus, their objectives and the appropriate elements of their methodology would be coordinated to ensure maximum effectiveness, efficiency and thereby minimising duplication. Having such a group would also provide a forum for the exchange of ideas and experiences in a timely fashion which should greatly enhance the synergy and consequently the ultimate outputs from each project.

Such a sub-program would ideally utilise the SCFA Working Group in combination with the ESD ‘Reference Group’ as its steering committee. The Reference Group includes representatives from other relevant areas of government, commercial industry, indigenous interests, recreational fishing, aquaculture, FRDC and environmental groups.