4 results

Assessing Australia's future resource requirements to the Year 2020 and beyond: strategic options for fisheries

Project number: 1999-160.90
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $5,059.00
Principal Investigator: Kylie Dunstan
Organisation: Fisheries Research and Development Corporation (FRDC)
Project start/end date: 26 Aug 2003 - 9 Oct 2003
Contact:
FRDC

Need

As shown in Figures 1 and 2 world human population growth is increasing at the greatest rate in history, but fisheries production has stagnated or declined since 1990. The oceans can produce only marginally more than they do at present. Demand for fisheries resources continues to increase, perhaps even faster than population growth as the culinary and health advantages of seafoods are being increasingly realised.

Australia has no specific policies to provide increased seafood resources for future generations. We already import more than half the seafood we consume. The lack of long-term policy is directly linked to the lack of understanding of the factors which truly influence supply and demand. No Australian fisheries management agency plans beyond resolution of current resource use problems. Recent crises resulting from the realisation of the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions and deforestation highlight the urgency for Australia to look much further ahead for all natural resource use and management strategies.

Modern economies depend on the concept of growth as a key element of their success. Notwithstanding the emergence of the service industries as an increasing proportion of this economic growth, the Australian economy still depends on an increasing primary production base to supply both domestic and export demand. While the proportion that fisheries might supply to Australia’s export demand might be stable as a percentage, the physical output in terms of tonnes per year grew considerably over the last 50 years. Most significantly, production has levelled, or even declined, in recent years. This physical aspect of growth often goes unnoticed in discussions around environmental sustainability, yet it is of critical importance to all our assumptions about the future of this country and therefore of our management of our fisheries resource base.

Fish, as food, and fisheries, both commercial and recreational, are tremendously important, fundamental components of most Australian's perception of what the future should hold. For the many tens of thousands employed directly or indirectly in fish related industries the social implications of long-term sustainability use of fish resources is even more pressing. Yet our resources and the ecosystems which underpin them are streteched or even over-taxed. It is extremely important for all associated with fish resource use and conservation that the status of individual fish resources be increasingly used by Governments as indicators of ecosystems health and therefore play an expanding role in Australia's total resource use projections. A current FRDC commissioned review of threats to, and potential solutions for, Australia's freshwater fisheries has identified increased use of fish as indicators of river health as the highest priority policy/management initiative.

While the recognition that many of our natural resources are linked across many aspects of a modern economy is hardly a new insight the CSIRO modelling initiative has attempted to bring quantitative data together to allow these linkages to be explored. The purpose of this work is to explore and choose sets of management and policy options which might contribute to more sustainable modes of operation for the Australian physical system. Many contemporary expressions such as “the weightless economy”, “the factor 4 economy” and “the zero waste economy” are meant to describe these new modes of more sustainable (or less physically impacting) operation.

This research proposal aims to describe from a national viewpoint the operation of the fisheries industries (commercial and recreational) in relation to their own long-term potential, and in relation to the other resource industries which might depend on, or impact on the fisheries resource. The particular modelling framework is designed to deal with long-term issues on time scale of 25, 50 or even 100 years. It attempts to define the quantities of fish demanded by both domestic and export requirements, as well as drawing on our current knowledge of the quantities that might be supplied from our fish stocks.

Currently the ASFF model is being used in long-term studies of Australia’s population requirements (Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs), its long-term energy position (CSIRO internally funded) and its long-term land and water position (LWRRDC funded for 3 years).

As FRDC’s portfolio of research investment is being revamped to include the multiple demands being made by societal expectation, the commercial industry and the recreational fishery, now is the time for a considered investment in a long-term viewpoint. Current shortfalls in total fishery production dictate a certain urgency in defining some long-term options which provide a strategic framework where more focussed and local investments can contribute their part in unison, rather than in isolation.

Objectives

1. Provide analysis of the long range perspective of tensions between fisheries demand and production at a national level for use in fisheries policy development.
2. To identify and quantify the linkages between the demands generated by human population growth and affluence and their effects on a range of natural resources, particularly capture fisheries and aquaculture.
3. To test a range of policy options which might resolve demand and supply imbalances at a national level out to 2020 and beyond.
4. To underpin future fisheries management policies by providing a comprehensive long-term view of the dynamics of production and demand for resources.
5. To enable fisheries to be properly incorporated into an on-going national program of modelling future natural resource demand and demographic influences.
6. To provide a simplified interpretation of Australia’s total long-term resource demands and production to enable the fishing industry to better understand their relationship with other resource users and with national development policies.

Industry and expert attendance at the ICES Expert Working Group Meetings. 3-7 April 2017 Nelson NZ

Project number: 2016-144
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $12,169.41
Principal Investigator: Crispian Ashby
Organisation: Fisheries Research and Development Corporation (FRDC)
Project start/end date: 3 Apr 2017 - 30 May 2017
Contact:
FRDC

Need

The ICES working group will be meeting in the southern hemisphere and this is a perfect opportunity for Australian based industry members and researchers to be exposed to the working group on fishing gear as well as acoustics to exchange ideas.

Objectives

1. Deliberate, discuss and synthesize recent research on topics related to: i) Designing, planning, and testing of fishing gears used in abundance estimation
ii) Selective fishing gears for the reduction of bycatch, discard and unaccounted mortality, especially as they relate to EU Landing Obligation
iii) Environmentally benign fishing gears and methods, iv) Improving fuel efficiency and reduction of emission from fisheries, and v) Summaries of research activities by nation
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PROJECT NUMBER • 2018-197
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Developing FRDC’s 2020-2025 RD&E Plan

This report covers the second of two CSIRO contributions to the project FRDC 2018-197. This project was reviewing FRDC research objectives through a process that developed alternative scenarios of possible futures relevant to Australian fisheries. Discussed here is the development of a...
ORGANISATION:
Fisheries Research and Development Corporation (FRDC)

People development program: strategic media training for the Australian seafood industry (industry attendance costs)

Project number: 2011-409.20
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $0.00
Principal Investigator: Patrick Hone
Organisation: Fisheries Research and Development Corporation (FRDC)
Project start/end date: 29 Jan 2012 - 30 Apr 2013
Contact:
FRDC

Need

From our industry consultation, FULLER understands that the Fisheries R&D Corporation coordinates a range of leadership courses each year that are designed to enhance the capabilities of mainly younger people.

Some of these courses include a basic media training component, however this is not delivered in a targeted or strategic manner, and there is no additional strategic communications follow-up training.

Any industry requires strong leadership in order to create positive change and to sustain itself in the face of competing environmental, commercial and political pressures.

FULLER believes that outstanding verbal, written and visual communication is critical to the successful leadership and management of any organization, and that the foundation of good communication is an agreed plan.

From our experience media training is more successful if trainees are told “what” to communicate, before they are taught “how” to communicate.

Therefore, while the tender brief calls for a short term solution – media training of industry leaders – it is our recommendation that this People Development Program should start with the development of a strategic communication plan.

This consultative process will help the industry better understand its key communication challenges and opportunities, the messaging it needs to communicate, and the key stakeholders it needs to engage. It will also suggest a wider range of communication tactics than just media – a necessity in this rapidly changing communication landscape (eg web, social media, video, SMS).

On completion of the plan, the subsequent training delivery will be able to introduce these current and future leaders to the big issues facing the industry, the consistent messaging that needs to be employed as well as contemporary public relations tools, including media engagement.

This will create a new breed of professional, proactive seafood leaders who will have a positive and lasting impact on the industry.

Objectives

1. Creation of a key influencer group of current and future leaders representing every aspect of industry (regional, territory, national) who will create the communication agenda.
2. Convening a strategic communications planning workshop with the key influencer group which will consider the industry’s key communication challenges and opportunities.
3. Development of a strategic communications plan to improve public perception of the industry and its engagement with national opinion makers and other economic sectors. The strategy will identify: Target audiences: who are the seafood industry’s key influencers and stakeholders? - Key Messaging: current and future challenges and how they will be addressed
positives of Australian seafood industry
negatives of Australian seafood industry. - Key Spokespeople: a primary and secondary leader in each state and territory. - Communication tactics: how will the seafood industry communicate with its stakeholders?
4. Development of an education program that will train industry representatives about contemporary strategic communication - how to do it and why it needs to happen - utilising the latest communications techniques including media.
5. Identification of seafood industry leaders/spokespeople in each state and territory in Australia who will undertake training.
6. Delivery of strategic communication and media training to key industry stakeholders at locations around Australia (at least five locations eg SA, VIC, NSW, TAS, WA). The training will equip current and future industry spokespeople with communication skills that will help them perform their responsibilities as leaders including: - the key messages required to communicate current and future challenges of the industry and how they might be addressed
- contemporary communication tactics that can help build healthy relationships with key stakeholders and build trust with the general public
- professional presentation and media skills (how to conduct a professional presentation and how to conduct a media interview including how to perform during a crisis)
- internal communication skills to build a positive and proactive culture among the membership of peak industry organisations.
7. Development of an annual “update” program of communication education and activity that leverages and connects existing leadership and communication activities (e.g. the creation of a communications workshop at existing annual conferences.)
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