Healthcheck Phase 2
Developing environmental management standards for the Australian seafood industry
Patterns of interaction between habitat and oceanographic variables affecting the connectivity and productivity of invertebrate fisheries
Development of management recommendations to assist in advisories around seafood safety during toxic bloom events in Gippsland Lakes
Cumulative impacts across fisheries in Australia's marine environment
The need for cumulative impact assessment (CIA) is increasingly being recognized. The development process for Australia's Harvest and Bycatch Policies, and their associated guidelines have reinforced the need for assessment of cumulative impacts, and the EPBC Act has also explicitly required consideration of cumulative impacts.
Where multiple activities occur or are planned, an understanding of their combined effects on the environment is necessary to address policy requirements and achieve sustainability. The concept of cumulative impact assessment is not new – indeed cumulative assessment has been recognized for many years, and a range of methods have been proposed around the globe. However, no methodology for undertaking cumulative assessments has been accepted nationally or globally. In addition to considering the impacts across all fishing sectors (commercial, recreational, indigenous, as required by recent changes to the Fisheries Administration Act 1991) and all fisheries, there is also an increasing need to consider other users of marine resources and coastal waters (e.g. renewable energy, shipping etc), especially where space crowding may be an issue.
Target species stock assessments typically consider the species of interest as well as other sources of fishing mortality (e.g. discards), but they do not usually consider their effects on other fisheries sectors or the effects of other sectors on the focal fishery. CIA methods therefore need to consider interactive and indirect effects. To date, interactive effects are often viewed as additive (simple linear addition of one impact to another) with little consideration given to synergistic, antagonistic or non-linear effects. While the ERAEF toolbox used for assessment of bycatch and protected species has some potential options for cumulative impacts (e.g. SAFE method), at this stage they are insufficient for moving to the scales and complexities across multiple fishing sectors and fisheries.
Thus, sustainable fisheries management requires new approaches that consider all sectors and all fisheries and how they impact the environment. Such CIAs will be challenging given that empirical data are often lacking - a dedicated research effort is needed.
Final report
Disseminating existing bycatch reduction and fuel efficiency technologies throughout Australia's prawn fisheries
International Workshop on ciguatera management
Implementation workshop for the effective adoption of the outcomes from the SESSF Declining Indicators project
The recent Southern and Eastern Scalefish and Shark Fishery (SESSF) Declining Indicators project (FRDC 2016-146) culminated in a successful workshop discussion involving effective contribution and engagement from all fishery stakeholders with particularly good industry attendance and engagement. The Declining Indicators project entailed the presentation of a series of subject matter papers covering seven focus areas:
- legislative / management impediments
- fleet capacity and characteristics
- fisher behaviour and vessel operation
- climate change and oceanographic conditions
- costs of production and markets
- quota ownership and trading
- the assessment process.
At the workshop numerous hypotheses were tested through presentation, discussion and survey approaches. This resulted in a range of significant outcomes recommended for adoption to improve the sustainable, efficient and cost-effective management of the SESSF.
In conjunction with the current project, there have been other recent strategic projects which elucidate current issues in the SESSF and their potential to be addressed in future SESSF management: FRDC 2014-203 ‘SESSF Monitoring and Assessment – Strategic Review’ (Knuckey et. al 2017); FRDC 2016-139 ‘Decadal-scale projection of changes in Australian fisheries stocks under climate change’ (Fulton et al. 2018); and ‘FRDC 2016-059 Adaptation of Commonwealth fisheries management to climate change’ (Rayns et al, underway). There is a need for the outcomes and recommendations of all of these project to be considered together to inform future management of the SESSF and in particular to help inform the design of the upcoming project: FRDC 2018-021 ‘Development and evaluation of multi-species harvest strategies in the SESSF’.
The new proposed project, an implementation workshop, will draw together the outcomes of these projects to be assessed, conveyed to those outside the Declining Indicators group, and implemented into the fishery.
Final report
The key outcome of this project is the implementation plan at Appendix 1 which provides a comprehensive, prioritised list of actions for the SESSF as it transitions to a new harvest strategy framework. The implementation plan also provides a framework for ongoing governance and reporting to ensure the benefits of recent research can be realised.
This project ensured that views of stakeholders were taken into account in the effective adoption of research outcomes. The high level of stakeholder engagement has increased support for pursuing the resultant list of actions.
Fundamental to the transition of the SESSF is the current FRDC project to revise and update the SESSF Harvest Strategy Framework (Development and evaluation of multi-species harvest strategies in the SESSF (FRDC 2018-021)). Many of the recommendations from the implementation plan at Appendix 1 will help inform that project.