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
Circular Economy Opportunities for Fisheries and Aquaculture in Australia
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’.