10 results
Environment
Industry
Environment
PROJECT NUMBER • 2003-220
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Innovative Solutions for Aquaculture: potential for parasite interactions between wild and farmed kingfish, discrimination of farmed and wild fish and assessment of migratory behaviour

This project greatly contributed to an increased understanding of parasite fauna of yellowtail kingfish in Australian waters. This baseline information is critical to understanding potential parasite interactions between wild and farmed kingfish. Our risk assessment enables consideration...
ORGANISATION:
Department of Primary Industries and Regions South Australia (PIRSA)
Environment
Blank
PROJECT NUMBER • 2019-085
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

National Snapper Workshop - Rebuilding our iconic Snapper stocks

The Department of Primary Industries and Regions organised and ran a national Snapper Workshop in Adelaide from the 12 to 14 November 2019 with funding from FRDC and the strong support of the Australian Fisheries Managers Forum. The workshop objectives were to: identify key issues and...
ORGANISATION:
Department of Primary Industries and Regions South Australia (PIRSA)
SPECIES

National Guidelines to develop fishery harvest strategies

Project number: 2010-061
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $135,000.00
Principal Investigator: Sean R. Sloan
Organisation: Department of Primary Industries and Regions South Australia (PIRSA)
Project start/end date: 3 Jan 2011 - 13 Jan 2012
:

Need

There is need for a coordinated, nationally consistent approach to developing harvest strategies for Australian fisheries. The Commonwealth Harvest Strategies Policy and Guidelines (2007) provide a foundation for harvest strategy development in Commonwealth managed fisheries. AFMF has identified the need to build upon these strategies to encompass fisheries managed by both Commonwealth and State Governments. The proposed project will deliver an agreed set of overarching principles for Harvest Strategies across Australia.

Presently, the key elements of harvest strategies (defined objectives, indicators, assessments, reference points, trigger points and decision rules) vary in their implementation across jurisdictions. There are also gaps for some mixed sector fisheries where recreational or indigenous sectors dominate and/or commercial fisheries have low data.

The AFMF, in consultation with FRDC, recognise:
- There is a common objective of ESD across jurisdictions
- Harvest Strategies need to balance flexibility (to allow for changing circumstances) with providing certainty for how a fishery will be managed
- Harvest Strategies for shared/straddling stocks need further consideration and collaboration across jurisdictions to enhance stock management and data sharing
- A multi-jurisdictional harvest strategy for a shared stock will assist fisheries managers, industry and others with facilitating trade between states and managing the impacts of climate change.
- There are common challenges across jurisdictions to develop and apply harvest strategies in data poor fisheries; and incorporating non-commercial sectors into harvest strategies.
- Further work is required to include economic goals and indicators in harvest strategies, and subsequently on economic data collection
- Further work is required to identify recreational and social objectives and indicators.

The proposed project will focus on components of fisheries management considered less developed than other areas. These areas are:
- Cross-jurisdictional fisheries management arrangements
- Recreational fisheries management arrangements
- Incorporating triple bottom line analysis into fisheries management decision-making

Objectives

1. Undertake a review and analysis of present situation of harvest strategies in Commonwealth and State managed fisheries
2. Develop a common definition for nationally consistent harvest strategies
3. Develop an agreed set of over-arching principles for Harvest Strategies across Australia.

Final report

ISBN: 978-0-9807387-9-7
Author: Sean Sloan
Final Report • 2014-03-05 • 3.20 MB
2010-061-DLD.pdf

Summary

Harvest strategies offer an effective fisheries management tool to integrate the ecological, social and economic dimensions of fisheries management into a single framework for fisheries management decision making. As evidenced by their wide use internationally and throughout Australian fisheries management jurisdictions, harvest strategies represent a best-practice approach to fisheries management decision making (FAO 2011; Smith et al. 2013; McIlgorm 2013).

The National Guidelines aim to provide practical technical assistance to all government fisheries management agencies in Australia (State, Territory and Commonwealth) to develop fishery-specific harvest strategies and to facilitate a consistent and more harmonized approach across fisheries throughout Australia. The National Guidelines aim to help inform policy makers involved in the development of over-arching harvest strategy policies and assist in ensuring a national best-practice approach to the development of such policies. A national approach to harvest strategy development will enable common challenges to be addressed in a consistent and coordinated manner, thereby avoiding unnecessary duplication of effort and resources, and ensuring more targeted investment in ways to address common challenges.

Project products

Brochure • 1.14 MB
2010-061-PDT-1.pdf

Summary

The National Guidelines to Develop Fishery Harvest Strategies Project aimed to provide practical technical assistance to all government fisheries management agencies in Australia (State, Territory and Commonwealth) to develop fishery-specific harvest strategies and to facilitate a consistent and more harmonised approach across fisheries throughout Australia. This is a summary of the final report. 

Developing and testing social objectives for fisheries management

Project number: 2010-040
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $693,411.73
Principal Investigator: Lianos Triantafillos
Organisation: Department of Primary Industries and Regions South Australia (PIRSA)
Project start/end date: 19 Jun 2010 - 29 Aug 2013
:

Need

As discussed in the Background section, 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.

There is a need for specific social objectives and associated relevant indicators for fisheries management to use in the development of management plans and the assessment of them. This requires clarity over the degree and boundaries of social responsibility fisheries management have in areas such as employment, skills and education. In this context, it is essential to ensure that the tradeoffs between the social, environmental and economic objectives provide the optimal outcomes in the context of fisheries and other external drivers.

A universal set of social objectives needs to be identified, trialled (using relevant case studies) and agreed as acceptable for fisheries managers, before any further effective progress can be made on the implementation of triple bottom line assessments or government management of ESD in Australia’s fisheries.

Objectives

1. Identify social objectives and indicators of relevance at the National level
2. Test and verify applicability of social objectives and indicators using the Queensland Trawl Fishery and three fishing communities in South Australia as case studies
3. Review social objectives and indicators for applicability to National fisheries management

Final report

ISBN: 978-0-9924621-0-9
Author: Dr Lianos Triantafillos
Final Report • 2016-02-23 • 20.66 MB
2010-040-DLD.pdf

Summary

The importance of including social objectives in fisheries management is recognised in many policies and programs that are intended to guide sustainable fisheries management. This includes the principle of Ecologically Sustainable Development (ESD) that underpins Australian fisheries management and is commonly agreed as the way forward in fisheries and marine ecosystem management, the Marine Stewardship Council certification process and the UNESCO Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO)’s Code of Conduct. 

Yet, little is known about the social dimensions of sustainable fisheries management. In particular, there is little guidance available for fisheries managers to assist them in identifying the social objectives they are managing for, or in collecting information that helps them more successfully manage for these objectives. To address this, this project developed a two-part guide, titled ‘Managing the Social Dimensions of Fishing’ (‘the Guide’). This Guide takes fisheries managers and other key stakeholders through the steps of implementing social objectives, in an ESD context, by helping them identify, document and manage social objectives relevant to their fishery. The Guide also helps fisheries managers identify what aspects of the social dimensions of fisheries they can influence and what factors remain outside their direct influence. This will help fisheries managers better target the identification and management of social objectives to those issues that they can address. Fisheries managers and other key stakeholder will now be able to monitor the performance of a fishery from a social perspective and make decisions regarding future management. This is essential to enable progress to be made on the implementation of triple-bottom-line assessments for Australia’s fisheries. 

The Guide will also assist the Australian Fisheries Management Forum (AFMF) to promote a consistent national management approach across all fisheries jurisdictions for developing social objectives. The adoption of a consistent national approach will lead to improved fisheries management outcomes through increased certainty for all stakeholders.

The development of social objectives and associated indicators for Australian fisheries that can be used to assess performance, in line with ecological and economic objectives, was achieved through three phases. 

First, based on a review of the literature on social dimensions of fishing, existing requirements of all Australian jurisdictions in relation to fisheries legislation and policy, and of existing national and international frameworks that consider social dimensions of fishing, a set of draft social objectives and associated indicators was developed. These draft social objectives and indicators were then revised at a workshop held with fisheries managers and policy makers from across Australia, which also included representatives from commercial, recreational and Indigenous fisheries from all states and territories. The workshop also considered how fisheries managers might best be able to engage with the proposed project outputs. 

Second, case studies of the Queensland East Coast Trawl Fishery, the South Australian communities of Ceduna, Port Lincoln and Wallaroo (in which a diversity of fisheries operate) and the Indigenous community of Narunnga from South Australia were used to test the draft social objectives and indicators, identify how best to select and apply them to the circumstances of specific fisheries and to identify low-cost approaches that can be used by fishery managers to enable them to more explicitly incorporate social objectives in their management. 

The results of the case studies were used to revise and refine the objectives, and to develop indicators designed to inform each objective. The outcome was a set of recommended social objectives and associated indicators, as well as recommended processes for selecting, measuring, and analysing them in different contexts. Testing in multiple case studies ensured that the resulting social objectives and associated indicators included in the Guide are appropriate for fisheries management across different jurisdictions, at the State, Territory and Commonwealth level. 

Third, the revised social objectives and indicators were workshopped with the fisheries managers that had participated in the first phase of the project. This provided the basis for developing the two-part Guide that is the final output of the study. The draft Guide was reviewed by fisheries managers from across Australia, and their comments and feedback incorporated into revisions of the Guide.

Throughout the project, the objectives and indicators were developed with future integration into potential fisheries status report frameworks, such as the National Fisheries Status Report, in mind. To that end, the social objectives and indicators included in the Guide are high-level and include options that enable individual fisheries management jurisdictions to select options for measuring social objectives that best fit their needs, resources and budgets. 

Keywords: ESD, social objectives, social indicators, triple-bottom-line assessment, national guidelines, fisheries management.

Environment
Industry
PROJECT NUMBER • 1999-332
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Development of a national biotoxin strategy

In Australia aquaculture and wild harvest of shellfish is an economically important and growing industry. The safety of these products as a food source is of utmost importance from both public health and economic points of view. One of the potential problems faced by shellfish growers is...
ORGANISATION:
Department of Primary Industries and Regions South Australia (PIRSA)
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