Establishing baselines and assessing vulnerability of commercially harvested corals across northern Australia

Project number: 2014-029

Project Status:

Completed

Budget expenditure: $400,000.00

Principal Investigator: Morgan S. Pratchett

Organisation: Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD) WA

Project start/end date: 30 Nov 2014 - 29 Jun 2018

Contact:

FRDC

Need

Australia’s aquarium industries are high value (collectively GVP values >$20 million), small scale fisheries that rely on exporting CITES listed corals for profitability and viability. The Australian government requires fisheries collecting and exporting CITES listed species to demonstrate that their harvest is sustainable. This is achieved through the provision of a successful non-detrimental finding and accrediting the fishery as an approved Wildlife Trade Operation (WTO) under the EPBC Act. There is growing international pressure for Australia to unequivocally demonstrate sustainable collection practices for CITES listed species. However, data-poor fisheries like the aquarium fisheries, struggle to provide sufficient quantitative data supporting the non-detrimental use of CITES listed species. This has resulted in severe restrictions on allowable harvest levels tied to WTO approvals and industry viability is at risk.

Many of the coral species taken by the marine aquarium industry across northern Australia are in inter-reef turbid water environments that are poorly studied. In addition, many of the species are documented as rare or uncommon although they may be locally abundant in these turbid waters environments. A recent Ecological Risk Assessment of the Queensland Coral Fishery (May 2013) identified the priority need to fill these data gaps to better quantify the level of impact on corals from commercial collection.

Abundance baselines for these species are required to demonstrate sustainable use and support export approvals. Species identification of harvested corals also needs to be clarified as this information is critical for aligning catch data with scientific information on the vulnerability of different coral species. This will lead to the development of monitoring protocols for the industry, and in the longer term, to demonstrate sustainable harvest.

Objectives

1. Establish the distribution and abundance of commercially important coral species in selected inter-reef habitats

2. Improve the accuracy of species identifications across the industry

3. Establishing abundance and turnover of representative commercially important inter-reefal corals

4. Establish a cost effective industry based long-term monitoring program

5. Undertake consistent Ecological Risk Assessments (ERA) in NT and WA to establish vulnerability of major target species

Final report

Authors: Morgan Pratchett Ciemon Caballes Vanessa Messmer Shaun Wilson Anthony Roelofs Mark Grubert Russell Kelley and Stephen Newman

Final Report • 2020-12-01 • 34.79 MB

2014-029-DLD.pdf

Summary

The objectives and outcomes of this project were three-fold. Firstly, we established the abundance and turnover of select, commercially important coral species in areas of concentrated fishing across northern Australia. Improved understanding of the biology and ecology of harvested corals is fundamental to establishing baselines and sustainable harvest levels. Secondly, we helped to refine species-level taxonomy for commonly harvested coral species, using genetic analyses, to better establish what is being harvested and where. Genetic analyses on corals collected from different jurisdictions helped to reveal which species are very widespread, and therefore more resilient, versus those that are geographically restricted, and therefore warrant specific management attention. Thirdly, we explored species-specific vulnerability to extrinsic pressures on coral stocks, related to environmental change. Climate induced coral bleaching if the foremost threat to coral species and could undermine the sustainability of ongoing coral harvesting independent of fishery effort or take.