2 results

Australasian Aquaculture 2010 to 2014

Project number: 2009-303
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $240,000.00
Principal Investigator: Neil Stump
Organisation: National Aquaculture Council (NAC)
Project start/end date: 30 Jun 2009 - 29 Nov 2014
:
TAGS
Sustainability
Stock Assessment
Marketing
Conference
Communications

Need

Conferences still remain the primary method of knowledge transfer between stakeholders of the aquaculture industry, whether they are industry, government, researchers or NGO’s. However they need to be structured correctly for the benefit of the industry. There needs to be opportunities for industry to talk and listen to each other, as well as industry to talk to and listen to researchers and government and vice versa. The Australasian Aquaculture Conferences provide these opportunities.

The Australasian Aquaculture Conferences of 2004-06-08 have been learning curves for the industry and the NAC in running events of this size. The FRDC were rightly cautious in sponsoring the conference on a conference by conference basis. However, NAC has proven it is a competent conference convener and the industry have shown their support through excellent conference attendances. Given this track record the FRDC should feel confident in signing up as a conference sponsor on a long term basis, i.e. for the next 3 conferences 20010-12-14. Having the long term support of the FRDC will mean a large proportion of the conference sponsorship will be secured. This will allow the NAC to pursue other sponsorship using the FRDC’s commitment as both a surety of the conference and as leverage for attracting other sponsors to the conference. This will have significant flow on benefits to the Australian aquaculture industry. It will flow through to the quality of the conference program, trade show, the facilities and hospitality. Ultimately, the conference will generate significant profit that will eventually lead to little or no reliance on the FRDC for future underwriting. Further, conference profits will be used by the NAC on behalf of its members to provide better services.

Objectives

1. Provide an international forum for aquaculture stakeholders to identify pathways to sustainable aquaculture development
2. Provide an international trade show of aquaculture equipment and services, fully integrated with the conference.
3. To promote Australian aquaculture to international interests.

Integration of socio economic sustainability criteria into a reporting framework for the Australian aquaculture industry

Project number: 2007-010
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $166,050.00
Principal Investigator: Justin Fromm
Organisation: National Aquaculture Council (NAC)
Project start/end date: 25 Sep 2007 - 28 Feb 2010
:
TAGS
Stock Assessment
Population Dynamics
Policy
Leadership
Individual Transferable Quota

Need

Substantial resources and funding have been provided into developing EMS and ESD programs and providing facilitators through areas such as the Aquaculture Action Agenda, the Department of Environment and Water (DEWR) funded EMS Pathways projects and FRDC funded projects. Satisfactory extension of the benefits of EMS to aquaculturists, regulators or the community has not occurred due to the lack of socio-economic data to substantially support the claims of sustainability through environmental responsibility. The industry needs to develop appropriate environmental, social and economic indicators and collect appropriate data to address these indicators. To achieve this, industry needs to know what information to collect, how to provide measurable indicators, appropriate storage and evaluation mechanism for the data, extension mechanisms to industry, regulatory agencies and the community and presentation in an appropriate reporting framework.

This project is not focused on extension but on the development of social and economic elements of ESD that will be integrated with the exiting environmentl indicators. It does however have an element in developing a reporting framework that incorporates the data collected on these social and economic elements so that it can be presented to stakeholders to substantiate the industry’s ESD credentials.

This project will be targetd at the regional and industry level and not specifically at the farm level. This will consistent with the exisitng ESD risk assessment framework developed by Fletcher This will require the development of a set of indicators for each industry/region. Whilst some of the ecological elements have been identified and have been the subject of previous research there is limited information on what social and economic elements should be measured. This require further research to see if these gaps can be filled.

Objectives

1. Determine whether a set of easily understood and defensible ESD indicators can be develped for each of the key Australian aqauculture industries
2. Develop a system for presenting these indicators that can be easily integrated within the general public reporting frameworks.
3. Develop and implement a communications strategy that promotes the use of this ESD reporting framework as an essential tool for the aquaculture industry and stakeholders.

Final report

ISBN: 978-0-646-54035-1
Author: Justin Fromm
Final Report • 2010-10-17 • 2.44 MB
2007-010-DLD.pdf

Summary

This study has tested and refined the indicators and potential data collection questions that may be implemented by individual aquaculture enterprises, and subjected to basic interpretation by the industry, to inform ESD reporting. Some of the economic and social data also has the potential for use, beyond ESD, in regard to identifying industry development and community collaboration opportunities.

Discussions with industry at the final workshop identified both willingness and the potential vehicles with which to undertake annual collection of the data identified here, at the individual business level. This is an important and essential factor in the long term use of the tools and implementation of the framework identified here.

There is a need to remain cognisant of the cost effectiveness of different approaches to data acquisition. Though utilising existing data in the economic domain and to integrate the collection of social indicator data with other benchmarking and regular data collection activities, it is reasonable to aim for ongoing collection of data to inform ESD performance.

The collection and integration of both economic and social indicators appropriate to national collection, but not currently broadly or consistently collected, is essential to future successful implementation of ESD reporting. Negotiations regarding the ways in which to collect data to inform nationally applicable indicators, with agencies such as ABARE or State NRM Government agencies, needs to occur. This is, however, outside the scope of this project. This project has identified recommended indicators and the associated data for the aquaculture industry that needs to be addressed in such negotiations.

Keywords: Sustainability; Aquaculture; Social; Economic; Ecologically Sustainable Development (ESD); Indicators.

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