This travel bursary application is to attend a 3-day workshop, ““Data Management and Local Knowledge: Building a Network to Support Community-Based Research and Monitoring" to be held in Boulder, Colorado, U.S.A, on November 15, 16, 17, 2011. The purpose of the workshop is to bring together researchers, industry and community members, organizations, and projects working on issues surrounding data management for both Local and Traditional Knowledge (LTK) and information from community and industry-based research and monitoring. They are interested in projects and initiatives that work with LTK and are addressing data management issues in some way – from asking questions about how we can archive our data and information for future generations, to fully operational data management systems. The organisers have written to invite me to attend (pdf attached) in order to exchange experiences and information on how we can better gather, utilise and acknowledge important information that is held within our marine industries and communities.

Formally incorporating fisher knowledge into our assessment and management frameworks has never been so critical. Fishers need to alter what they do in response to marine ecosystem changes (i.e. adaptation), yet many fishers do not acknowledge climate change or trust traditional scientific information about climate change. We need platforms that collect and display information fishers trust -their own industry information.

In order to secure the future of Australian wild-catch and aquaculture fisheries, it is increasingly clear that, alongside effective and responsible management and production, building and maintaining societal support is vital.

There are a number of recent examples in Australia where wild-catch and aquaculture fisheries have been threatened, even shut down, as a result of not having a ‘social license to operate’. This is despite having good ecological, economic and management credentials. Examples include: the 2016 closure of the Victorian small scale Port Phillip Bay net fishery as a result of pressure from the recreational fishing sector; the environmental controversy over mid-water trawling (‘super trawlers’) for small pelagic species despite scientifically-determined healthy stock status; and environmental non-governmental organisations (eNGOs) campaigns against Tassal’s proposed fish farm operations in Okehampton Bay on Tasmania’s east coast.

The wild-catch and aquaculture industries are increasingly and acutely aware of the need to garner societal support. But, they are unsure of how to address poor societal support at its root, who needs to be involved to address the problem, and effective pathways to improving societal support. From an industry perspective, there are gaps in knowledge in terms of 1) identifying the determinants of poor/high societal support; 2) identifying stakeholder groups to target who determine societal support and outcomes for wild-catch and aquaculture fisheries (e.g. other resource user groups, eNGOs, decision-makers and government, consumers, other publics); and 3) appropriate, effective and innovative pathways to improve societal support through engagement strategies and interventions.

However, there is a wealth of information available that is not directly or easily transferable currently. It requires collation and synthesis to address the knowledge gaps, including learnings from other industries, international wild-catch and aquaculture fisheries, as well as historical case studies of successes and failures within Australia. This project will draw together knowledge from existing literature and documentation and also use key informant interviews to address the above gaps.