Guidelines on a tiered, risk-based approach to bycatch management
Assessing Australia's future resource requirements to the Year 2020 and beyond: strategic options for fisheries
As shown in Figures 1 and 2 world human population growth is increasing at the greatest rate in history, but fisheries production has stagnated or declined since 1990. The oceans can produce only marginally more than they do at present. Demand for fisheries resources continues to increase, perhaps even faster than population growth as the culinary and health advantages of seafoods are being increasingly realised.
Australia has no specific policies to provide increased seafood resources for future generations. We already import more than half the seafood we consume. The lack of long-term policy is directly linked to the lack of understanding of the factors which truly influence supply and demand. No Australian fisheries management agency plans beyond resolution of current resource use problems. Recent crises resulting from the realisation of the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions and deforestation highlight the urgency for Australia to look much further ahead for all natural resource use and management strategies.
Modern economies depend on the concept of growth as a key element of their success. Notwithstanding the emergence of the service industries as an increasing proportion of this economic growth, the Australian economy still depends on an increasing primary production base to supply both domestic and export demand. While the proportion that fisheries might supply to Australia’s export demand might be stable as a percentage, the physical output in terms of tonnes per year grew considerably over the last 50 years. Most significantly, production has levelled, or even declined, in recent years. This physical aspect of growth often goes unnoticed in discussions around environmental sustainability, yet it is of critical importance to all our assumptions about the future of this country and therefore of our management of our fisheries resource base.
Fish, as food, and fisheries, both commercial and recreational, are tremendously important, fundamental components of most Australian's perception of what the future should hold. For the many tens of thousands employed directly or indirectly in fish related industries the social implications of long-term sustainability use of fish resources is even more pressing. Yet our resources and the ecosystems which underpin them are streteched or even over-taxed. It is extremely important for all associated with fish resource use and conservation that the status of individual fish resources be increasingly used by Governments as indicators of ecosystems health and therefore play an expanding role in Australia's total resource use projections. A current FRDC commissioned review of threats to, and potential solutions for, Australia's freshwater fisheries has identified increased use of fish as indicators of river health as the highest priority policy/management initiative.
While the recognition that many of our natural resources are linked across many aspects of a modern economy is hardly a new insight the CSIRO modelling initiative has attempted to bring quantitative data together to allow these linkages to be explored. The purpose of this work is to explore and choose sets of management and policy options which might contribute to more sustainable modes of operation for the Australian physical system. Many contemporary expressions such as “the weightless economy”, “the factor 4 economy” and “the zero waste economy” are meant to describe these new modes of more sustainable (or less physically impacting) operation.
This research proposal aims to describe from a national viewpoint the operation of the fisheries industries (commercial and recreational) in relation to their own long-term potential, and in relation to the other resource industries which might depend on, or impact on the fisheries resource. The particular modelling framework is designed to deal with long-term issues on time scale of 25, 50 or even 100 years. It attempts to define the quantities of fish demanded by both domestic and export requirements, as well as drawing on our current knowledge of the quantities that might be supplied from our fish stocks.
Currently the ASFF model is being used in long-term studies of Australia’s population requirements (Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs), its long-term energy position (CSIRO internally funded) and its long-term land and water position (LWRRDC funded for 3 years).
As FRDC’s portfolio of research investment is being revamped to include the multiple demands being made by societal expectation, the commercial industry and the recreational fishery, now is the time for a considered investment in a long-term viewpoint. Current shortfalls in total fishery production dictate a certain urgency in defining some long-term options which provide a strategic framework where more focussed and local investments can contribute their part in unison, rather than in isolation.
Development of a national approach to seafood quality (SeaQual Australia)
Identifying and synthesizing key messages from projects funded by the FRDC Indigenous Reference Group
The IRG has raised a need to synthesise the key messages from previous projects that they have supported. In order to ensure that the data and information from these projects are accessible and easily understood for various audiences (includes Indigenous, commercial and recreational stakeholders, researchers, policy makers and the general public), the IRG has identified a need to create succinct materials that can be useful to those that seek to develop policy and stimulate community driven engagement.
Final report
- To gain an understanding of the materials and formats that policy makers and key fisheries organisations need in their use of research to develop policy.
- To improve general stakeholder awareness of the key research findings in of FRDC and IRG projects.
- To provide Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities with material that they can use in their engagement with government and non-government agencies.
- To develop succinct fact-sheets and a report that integrate the key messages of eight previous IRG projects in a user-friendly and culturally appropriate way.
- Indigenous fisheries
- Governance and management
- Legislation and policy
- Economic empowerment
- Capacity building