Given the state of development of the Australian prawn fisheries, a coordinated plan across the fisheries can better facilitate a national industry development strategy, while not detracting from responsibility for, or research supporting, stock sustainability issues.

A lack of integration of R&D and other work across stakeholders, States, and Australia exists. This is in part because the industry does not have a strategy with clearly defined R&D needs and priorities to guide investment and activity.

Two distinct needs are involved in any consideration of better national co-ordination for the southern rock lobster sector:

1.The strategic issues of prioritization, funding and the linkages to (and support for) both industry development plans and Government objectives of industry development.

The goals of industry development are common to both Government and industry. There are certainly issues to be addressed in the type of research and development that is needed to ensure growth opportunities are captured, efficiency and cost-effectiveness of such activities and that adequate funding is secured.

The next essential step is the development of a plan that supports and guides development. This is clearly an industry responsibility with Government facilitating and operating within the management boundaries that have been set to ensure resource sustainability.

2.The operational issues of facilitating effective communication and coordination at all levels (industry/researchers, among researchers, among industry, FRDC/researchers etc).

There are clear benefits (efficiencies, cost savings, potential synergies and new economic activity) to be gained in improving the communication and co-ordination in relation to prawn industry development. These opportunities for enhanced communication and co-ordination exist on a number of levels:
a. among researchers
b. between researchers and other related disciplines
c between industry and researchers and government managers
d. between the existing lobster subprograms and researchers and industry.
e. between industry bodies and
f. Seafood Services Australia.

These benefits are in offer both within States and across the States. The benefits will not be captured without a strategic and coordinated approach to developing the species. An industry Strategic Plan offers the logical mechanism to support the industry as it increasingly turns its endeavours to development beyond sustainability.

Recent assessments of the NPF have identified a need for the fishery to be managed at a finer spatial scale than that of the NPF managed area (AFMA 2003, DEH 2003). The stocks of some prawn species appear to comprise regional subpopulations that, although not genetically isolated, mix little enough to be manageable as separate stocks. This view is consistent with the experience that depleted stocks in some regions (e.g. north of Mornington Island and Weipa) have not recovered when stocks elsewhere in the NPF were healthy.
The assessments also identify a need to broaden the scope of management of the NPF beyond prawn stocks, iconic species and bycatch to include benthic habitats and species. Prawn fishing has a number of impacts on the ecosystem, including: removal of target species; removal of bycatch and byproduct; removal of benthic plants and animals; removal of habitat-forming species; disruption of sediment structure; suspension of sediment; and feeding of dolphins, sharks, seabirds, fish and benthic invertebrates with discards (Poiner et al. 1998). Some impacts, such as removal of seagrass in nursery habitats, are known to negatively affect prawn stocks. Other impacts are likely to affect stocks in unknown ways, positively or negatively, and in some habitats may affect the sustainability of the stocks.
Broadening management of the NPF to include impacts on benthic ecosystems is therefore prudent from both an environmental and industry viewpoint. It is also consistent with the recommendations of the NPF strategic assessment (DEH 2003), and will prepare the industry for the increasingly sophisticated environmental awareness of export markets.
Management of the NPF is currently based on sound stock assessment and population monitoring procedures, and uses maximum sustainable yield as the management limit reference point. Spatial stock assessment has been investigated with mixed success, but is not used operationally. Current environmental management focuses on fragile habitats (mainly seagrass), prawn spawning areas, iconic species (e.g. turtles) and bycatch. Recently, ABARE suggested a move towards economic efficiency targets, such as maximum economic yield. (Rose and Kompass 2004).
To do this the FRDC project 2004/022 will integrate the existing stock and economic assessments into an MSE process.
To enable stock, economic and environmental objectives to be effectively pursued in a spatial context and with minimal conflict, the stock, economic, bycatch and ecosystem components of NPF management must be integrated into a single, spatially explicit management framework. This project will contribute with major missing elements for that integration and will develop this needed spatial management framework. Equally, the timing of this proposal is opportune given that stock assessment and monitoring are already mature, interactions with iconic species and bycatch are becoming well understood, and the integration of stock assessment with economics is currently underway. To achieve highly effective technical communication and integration we will involve PIs from past and present projects and a Steering Committee with members from CSIRO AFMA staff and NORMAC-REC and NPF-RAG members.

1) The ecosystem effects of fishing need to be understood in order to work towards an EBM model for the Spencer Gulf. The South Australian government’s Marine Manager’s Forum has identified Spencer Gulf as the first area in SA for the development of a marine management plan. Better information on impacts of fishing will reduce the reliance of managers on the precautionary principle in developing management plans.
2) The important results from FRDC project 98/225: Prawn fishery by-catch and discards: fates and consequences for a marine ecosystem, are an understanding of the major components of the food chain in the trawled areas of the Gulf and the identification of the major scavenger groups on discarded by-catch. There is a need to obtain data on population impacts in order to develop trophic dynamic models.
3) A prerequisite for energy-flow models is population data outlining life history parameters, growth, migration and immigration and standing stock of, in principle, all the major species.
4) Previous research by this investigator shows that the quantitatively important scavengers on discarded by-catch in the Spencer Gulf prawn fishery are Degens leatherjackets, sealice (non-parasitic highly aggressive isopods and amphiopods), blue crabs, large stingrays and Port Jackson sharks. The effects of discarded by-catch on the population structure of these species need to be understood with the aim of developing an ecosystem model.
5) The impact of fishing on marine ecosystems (target and by-catch) on sharks, skates and rays is a world-wide problem (Stevens et al. 2000). 50% of the global catch is taken as by-catch. The catch of non-target species can have an impact at the population and ecosystem levels, particularly the removal of top predators. Elasmobranchs are at the top of the food chain in the Spencer Gulf and are important by-catch in the prawn fishery. The ecosystem level effects of fishing on the populations of these species are unknown. Discarded by-catch is susceptible to mortality. This mortality, including sub-lethal effects and post discard mortality, needs to be measured in order to predict ecosystem effects.
6) To adopt the principle of ecological sustainability in the prawn fishery, change negative public perceptions of environmental impacts, and improve fishing practices.
7) To enhance the research capacity in environmental research with emphasis on biological resource utilisation.
(Stevens, J.D., Bonfil, R., Dulvy, N.K. & P.A. Walker 2000. The effects of fishing on sharks, rays, and chimaeras (chondrichthyans), and the implications for marine ecosystems. ICES J. Mar. Sci. 57: 476-494.)

This proposal represents an attempt to develop alternative technologies that would allow the prawn trawl industry to meet present and future strict environmental standards at a reduced operating cost. The proposal is not without risk, but reflects a genuine need to consider alternative fishing approaches outside the current thought envelope. If successful it would allow the industry to claim high environmental standards, meeting or exceeding the community expectations.

Alternatives to established fishery harvest methods are essential to meet ecologically sustainable development (ESD) requirements as dictated by international (UN) and national legislation (both federal and state) covering the marine environment. In recent years drift nets have been banned in many areas due to their detrimental impacts on non-targeted species and ecosystem structure. Similarly, ground trawling has been identified as a harvest technology that requires either restriction or banning due to its putative detrimental impacts on benthic ecosystems and disruption to food webs. Whereas drift net has been largely replaced by the sustainable and targeted method of hook and line harvesting, there are few alternatives to ground trawling.

Traps are used extensively for the harvesting of crustacea. Suitably designed pot traps can result in a minimum of by-catch and target individuals of specific size classes. However, pot trap fisheries utilise food as bait by which to attract the targeted species into the trap. Baited traps and pots are used for the commercial harvesting of pandalid prawns in the east Pacific and North Atlantic, where average catch/vessel/day of fishing effort is 80-110 kg. A smaller pot fishery exists for penaeid prawns in various parts of the Pacific basin and the Caribbean. However, attempts to date to develop a large pot trap fishery based on food bait for penaeid prawns have been largely unsuccessful.

It is proposed that chemical attractants, and not food bait, be examined as a means to harvest penaeid prawns in pots. The development of alternative harvest methods could form a non-trawl fishery with minimum by-catch, open up new areas to harvesting which are unsuitable for trawling, and produce a less stressful method to collect broodstock P. monodon prawns for the aquaculture sector as well as have spin-off potential for the development of pot trap fisheries for other species of crustacea.

In discussions with farmers in Queensland and NSW, it is clear that there are few indicators of prawn health, pond productivity or pond processes. Farmers and researchers are often at a loss to account for considerable differences in productivity, survival and growth rates between ponds. Nor has it been possible to forecast die-offs or deterioration in the health of prawns from conventional measurements of water quality or microbiology. Hence, as the industry matures and seeks to attain more consistent productivity, there is an urgent need for more sophisticated methods of assessing the status of ponds and the value of various pond management practices.

This project aims to increase farm productivity by studying the bacteriology of prawn ponds. Bacteria are the most abundant organisms in prawn ponds, being ubiquitous in all types of sediment, water and organisms at farms. Their processes determine: the fate of most organic matter in ponds, water quality, sediment condition and the health of prawns. For example, the toxins produced by pathogenic luminous bacteria, Vibrio harveyi, recently have been shown to be extracellular enzymes which digest proteins. Further, the hypothesis we have proposed that black marks, tail rot and necrosis of prawn antennae are due to extracellular enzymes, chitinases, needs to be investigated.

Thus there is a need for a new and more powerful approach to this issue, in that the PROCESSES carried out by the bacteria need to be studied, rather than the numbers and types of bacteria. Hence the proposed farm-based study is needed to provide the industry with sensitive, robust, inexpensive and rapid bio-indicators which can be used to assess and forecast pond productivity.