172 results
Environment
PROJECT NUMBER • 2021-089
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Climate resilient wild catch fisheries

This report outlines the impending need for the fishing industry to reduce GHG emissions by 2030. Over 8 months, the project evaluated alternative fuels' potential to cut emissions, recognising challenges in regulatory stimulus and incomplete research. Among numerous options, certain solutions...
ORGANISATION:
Seafood Industry Australia (SIA)
TAGS
Climate Resilience
Climate Mitigation
Industry

FRDC-DCCEE: human adaptation options to increase resilience of conservation-dependent seabirds and marine mammals impacted by climate change

Project number: 2010-533
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $300,000.00
Principal Investigator: Alistair Hobday
Organisation: CSIRO Environment
Project start/end date: 31 Jan 2011 - 29 Jan 2013
Contact:
FRDC
TAGS
Sustainability
Stakeholder
Innovation
Fisheries Management
Electronic Monitoring

Need

Climate change is already impacting species from a range of trophic levels around Australia. In recent years, shifts in species distribution have been documented at a range of lower trophic levels in Australia (Hobday et al 2007), including phytoplankton (Thompson et al 2009), intertidal invertebrates (Pitt et al 2010), and coastal fish (Last et al 2010), and are now underpinning management responses. However, for Australia’s iconic higher trophic level conservation-dependent marine taxa, such as seabirds (and shorebirds) and marine mammals, there is a knowledge gap regarding responses to climate variability and change. These species are protected throughout Australia and in some cases are recovering from previous anthropogenic impacts. Resolution of climate change impacts from other anthropogenic threats is needed for these species, in order to implement appropriate and timely adaptive management responses. Unfortunately, for most species, evidence of responses to environmental variability and the functional processes driving these affects is limited (but see References in Attachment 1). This is seen by managers as a major impediment to ongoing conservation management and planning in the face of climate variability and change. In addition, monitoring approaches for some of these species may also need to be reassessed and modified in order to better detect the impacts of climate change. Efficient ongoing monitoring is also required to allow adaptation responses to be validated. Results from this proposal will support adaptation by researchers undertaking the monitoring and adaptation by managers. Furthermore, options for enhancing the adaptive capacity of species impacted by climate change will fostered as a result of this project. (References provided in Attachment 1).

Objectives

1. Connect researchers, managers and policy makers, to focus on climate-ready monitoring and adaptation options for conservation-dependent seabirds and marine mammals.
2. Link ongoing monitoring programs around Australia for seabirds and marine mammals with relevant wildlife and conservation management agencies.
3. Extract climate signals for selected time series around Australia using cutting-edge statistical approaches.
4. Develop protocols for monitoring impacts of environmental variation on indicator species and develop an indicator suite of spatial and temporal metrics for climate change impacts.
5. Combine the indicator metrics to develop multi-species productivity indicators for Australian regions.
6. Provide practical adaptation guidelines for science and management, including on-ground monitoring protocols

Final report

Final Report • 4.16 MB
2010-533-DLD.pdf
Environment

Sea Change: co-developing pathways to mitigate and adapt to a changing climate for fisheries and aquaculture in Australia

Project number: 2023-011
Project Status:
Current
Budget expenditure: $1,628,586.00
Principal Investigator: Gretta T. Pecl
Organisation: University of Tasmania (UTAS)
Project start/end date: 31 Oct 2023 - 30 Apr 2027
Contact:
FRDC
TAGS
Climate Resilience
Climate Mitigation
Climate Change
Adaptation

Need

There is a need to increase effective engagement between fishing and aquaculture stakeholders and climate science and scientists in an ongoing strategic way, and not ‘just’ for single-project outcomes.

Improved engagement will help increase understanding of the likely implications of a changing climate in relevant contexts, and lay foundations for a shared exploration of available options for reducing risk exposure. We have worked with stakeholders and the FRDC Extension Officer Network to design a strategy that will engage fishing and aquaculture stakeholders on existing knowledge regarding risks and opportunities associated with a changing climate, to enable resource managers and researchers to better understand the ways in which many sectors are already adapting autonomously and to identify the barriers to further adaptation, and to co-design solutions that are relevant at local- and industry-levels to help build climate-ready communities and to stimulate economic resilience.

In many cases (but not all), extensive information regarding marine climate change - including key risks to fisheries and aquaculture producers (at a high level) - is already available, along with information on how to develop adaptation plans. However, despite this, progress and uptake within most sectors in terms of planned adaptation responses has been very slow – although many individual operators are already making ‘autonomous’ changes to their day-to-day operations in response to climate change drivers. If these changes are being made without access to best available knowledge, then it is very likely that substantial portions of these responses are maladaptive in the longer term, or may be countervailing to planned government adaptations (see Pecl et al 2019, Ambio, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13280-019-01186-x). This is a pattern evident within many different industries around Australia and across the rest of the world. ‘What’ needs to happen has thus been outlined in general terms in many cases, but such information is not co-developed or provided in consultation with end-users in ways that resonate or are useful to them. This project will address this need for relevance and usefulness.

The project aims to develop reflexive, ongoing, and two-way knowledge exchange between industry representatives, operators and manager, and the marine climate change impacts and adaptation research sector, so that solutions are co-designed, usable, and adoptable.

Objectives

1. Work with seafood industry leaders to establish two-way climate conversations that can strengthen and underpin Australian fishing and aquaculture’s resilience to a changing climate. This approach will facilitate co-design of pathways to increase agility and build capacity for climate change adaptation with a select number of fisheries and aquaculture operations. This process will also create a model that can be applicable to other RDC’s.
2. Create a climate conversations platform to facilitate knowledge exchange (including identifying ‘gaps’ and shared issues), and thus capture, disseminate, and showcase:a. How fishing and aquaculture sectors are already adapting and responding to recent changesb. What has facilitated these changes made, and what the barriers are to further adaptationc. The story of fishing and aquaculture’s efforts towards achieving climate resilience - using a dynamic ‘story map’ approach, and other multi-media, communicate progress to target audiences.
3. Identify a) key factors influencing the agility of fisheries and aquaculture to adapt to climate change, and b) which factors (e.g. opportunities) are most important for adaptation capacity-building for different types of operations - building on work underway across multiple domestic and international projects and working groups.
4. Co-develop pathways, with a select number of fisheries and aquaculture operations, to increase their agility and build sector capacity for climate change adaptation and resilience.
5. Support the development of communities of practice for groups of fisheries and/or aquaculture operations that have similar opportunities and pathways – to support increased agility and capacity building for climate change adaptation (determined in objective 3).
Environment
Industry
PROJECT NUMBER • 2013-210
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Adapt or Fail: Risk management and business resilience in Queensland commercial fisheries

This study sought to explore how different types of fishing businesses adapted to different types of change within Queensland’s east coast fisheries. The project team first sought to classify fishing businesses into ‘types’, exploring the industry structure in a new and...
ORGANISATION:
James Cook University (JCU)
TAGS
Rac Qld
Policy
Fisheries Management
Climate Adaptation
Adaptation

Alternate energy solutions for aquaculture: A Seafood Industry Australia + Blue Economy CRC Collaboration

Project number: 2023-080
Project Status:
Current
Budget expenditure: $690,000.00
Principal Investigator: Veronica Papacosta
Organisation: Seafood Industry Australia (SIA)
Project start/end date: 30 Nov 2023 - 31 Oct 2025
Contact:
FRDC
TAGS
Renewable Energy
Climate Resilience
Climate Mitigation
Aquaculture

Need

This project will provide a wholistic decarbonisation decision platform as the aquaculture industry builds its climate resilience. This will directly continue the work from existing projects (Climate Resilient Wild Catch Fisheries FRDC - Project Number: 2021-089) and offers both a ‘one stop shop’ approach for viable available options, as well as emerging solutions that are forecast.

The key activities are:
1 | Develop an aquaculture emissions operational framework
2 | Undertake a technical readiness assessment - challenge and
advantages, viability and scalability working with micro-project partners
3 | Undertake a suite of early mover pilot projects
4| Develop a Decarbonisation e-decision map
5 | Develop policy and funding reports to inform governance + policy makers + potential investors
6| Develop and deliver supporting outreach & communications assets

We are confident that our funding proposal offers a unique whole of industry pathway for decarbonisation, can leverage from BECRC technical experiences and programs and SIA membership networks, but also importantly take into account opportunities available to accelerate action around company readiness.

Association micro project partners:
PRAWNS BARRAMUNDI
OYSTERS TUNA
KINGFISH ABALONE
SALMON SEAWEED

Early mover pilot project partners + NEW*
Tassal Group
Huon Salmon
Yumbah Aquaculture
Ocean Road
*NEW This project will also accommodate an additional commercial partner looking for ocean energy focused solutions. This pilot will be subcontracted to AOEG through FRDC.

Objectives

1. To understand challenges facing the aquaculture sector relating to a changing climate, building resilience and accelerating decarbonisation
2. To determine opportunities to respond to those challenges, and validate solutions
3. To engage with industry leaders and innovators to explore and validate viable, feasible and scalable options towards climate resilience
4. To demonstrate rapid and practical progress towards climate resilience and elements of SIA’s Our Pledge
5. To build partnerships and relationships with national and global leaders to enable advancement of prioritised solutions that will enable improved climate resilience
Adoption
PROJECT NUMBER • 2021-104
PROJECT STATUS:
CURRENT

Applying the fisheries climate adaptation handbook to Australia's state fisheries

This report outlines how the CSIRO-University of Tasmania team introduced the fisheries climate adaptation handbook across all Australian States and the Northern Territory. The initiative involved online training for managers, hands-on workshops in each jurisdiction’s chosen fishery, and...
ORGANISATION:
CSIRO Environment Hobart
TAGS
Fisheries Management
Climate Resilience
Climate Change
Capacity Building
Adaptation
Environment
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