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.