Social and economic evaluation of NSW coastal aquaculture
The NSW coastal aquaculture industry needs sound information about its economic and social contributions to coastal communities for its continued access to coastal resources to address prevalent negative perceptions. Competing coastal uses such as marine protected areas for conservation purposes and havens for recreational fishing may compromise the viability of aquaculture. For example, in recent submissions to government about commercial shellfish aquaculture leases in Jervis Bay, one submission claimed: “The contribution to the local and regional economy is estimated to be no more than $2 million. Is it worth risking a $700 million tourism industry for this small return?” Responses to this submission relied on evidence from locations outside NSW because currently there is no information available about contributions aquaculture makes to NSW regional communities beyond the value of farm gate sales. It is possible that aquaculture may enhance tourism, as it does in other regions in Australia and overseas, rather than detract from it, but without evidence it is difficult to make the case.
The NSW coastal aquaculture industry and the NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI) staff working on aquaculture have identified a need for a social and economic evaluation of the contributions the industry makes to regional communities. The new Marine Estate resource allocation process is based on assessments of social, economic and ecological values, threats and risks, highlighting absolute necessity of social and economic evaluations. Current trends for social responsibility reporting or certification for marketing also require social assessments. Finally, part of the need here is to improve the industry’s social license to operate. This project will provide baseline information that industry can then use to inform their community engagement strategies. DPI Aquaculture Manager Ian Lyall discovered that this kind of evaluation was planned for FRDC 2014/301 (on wild catch fisheries) and contacted the PI Kate Barclay to see if the same could be done for aquaculture, resulting in this proposal. DPI would benefit from this information for strategic planning for future development of coastal aquaculture.
Final report
Future oysters CRC-P: Polymicrobial involvement in OsHV outbreaks (and other diseases)
Social and economic evaluation of NSW coastal commercial wild-catch fisheries
The contributions of commercial fisheries to coastal communities in NSW is not well understood. Current methods for estimating the economic contribution of fisheries calculate only the landed value of the catch and numbers of people directly employed in commercial fishing. This gives inadequate information about commercial fisheries’ position in economic networks within coastal communities – they require a range of goods and services provided from the local community and from larger centres in NSW, all with associated employment. A small percentage of the population is directly engaged in commercial fishing, however, existing evidence indicates that when commercial fishing declines the negative impacts may spread throughout the supply chain, as well as on the ‘glue’ holding towns together through social contributions of fishing families. In the prevailing policy environment the importance of ecological protection and the contributions of recreational fishers are well recognized, while commercial fishers are often seen as ‘the bad guys’ and bear the brunt of the trade-offs made in resource management decisions.
The project generates knowledge that can be used both to demonstrate the value of commercial industries to improve their position as stakeholders in resource management decisions, and to improve public attitudes about commercial fisheries. Sound evidence about the contributions of commercial fisheries will enable triple bottom line policies for sustainability in coastal NSW, by adding social and economic knowledge to the ecological knowledge already developed. For example, it will help identify the costs of adjustment and the resilience of communities with economically challenged fisheries, and indicate how restructuring may be made less difficult. It will also remedy the lack of understanding about contributions from particular sections of commercial fishing, such as the special contributions Indigenous commercial fishers make to their local communities - both Indigenous and non-Indigenous - related to cultural obligations.
Final report
Project products
Valuing Victoria's Wild-catch fisheries and aquaculture industries
A study which measures the contribution of Victorian wild-catch and aquaculture fisheries to community wellbeing will meet multiple needs:
• Generate detailed, spatially-defined knowledge on the economic and social contributions of fisheries to community wellbeing, and elicit where contributions could be enhanced
• Inform government (local, state) of the importance of fisheries and likely impacts of policy or management decisions on regional and metropolitan communities
• Enhance community engagement and support for fisheries through demonstrating the benefits that flow from professional fishing and aquaculture sectors into communities
Audience: 1) industry representative organizations; 2) government; 3) general public. Currently, very little data exists about the economic and/or social benefits of professional fisheries to communities in Victoria. Existing data only calculate total value of production (beach/farm gate price x volume), and the number of business owners or fisheries employees identified in the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Census. There is no reporting of the multiplier effects in communities of having businesses based there, through service industries or seafood product going into markets. The lack of sophisticated information about the contributions of professional fishing puts the industry as a group at a disadvantage compared to competing resource users which do have such reporting and have been persuasive in negotiations.
Information on social contributions dovetails with economic contributions to build a picture of the overall contributions fisheries make. This can help address the lack of community support for fisheries and consumer influence on the regulatory environment, which has grown to constitute a threat to the continued viability of fisheries. While information generated via this project will not fix the problem – relationships between industry and community must be improved via sustained, strategic engagement – credible data on the social and economic contributions commercial fisheries make to Victoria is useful for boosting the industry’s ‘social license to operate’.