Validating a defensible and robust method for data collection, species composition and reporting the harvest of protected coral species from the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area

Funded Activity Summary

The Queensland Coral Fishery (QCF) operates within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. It operates under quota within a Total Allowable Catch (TAC). Catch is recorded in two categories. “Specialty Coral” and “Other Coral”. Specialty Coral quota constrains the collection of CITES corals to sustainable levels.

Globally regarded as one of the best managed coral fisheries, social acceptability of wild-harvest aquarium fisheries constantly challenges the existence of the QCF. This challenge is partway met by ensuring catch reporting in the QCF sets global standards for accuracy and transparency. Major reforms introduced to catch reporting in 2016 for the QCF raise these standards further. The reporting reforms will underpin assessments of ecological risk and environmental performance, the CITES non-detriment finding, and to maintain national and international market access.

The new measures now require the reporting of total actual weights for CITES corals, however it does not account for the weight of substrate attached to the actual coral when collected, which is typically removed after landing. Industry successfully advocated that trimmed substrate should not be allocated to Specialty Coral quota and that 25% of the weight should be allocated to Other Coral. This allows the true value and accurate weight of Specialty Coral quota to be realized and the total weight accounted for in the TAC. However the 25% figure is based solely on industry experience and requires independent validation. To ensure reporting is both accurate and has potential application to other fisheries, validating the quantum of trimmed substrate is critical. This project will provide this validation.

It is important that the proportion of trimmed substrate is validated through an independent scientific study for the following reasons:

• Continued social acceptance of the QCF.
• Fisheries Queensland, and the Commonwealth Department of the Environment and Energy require that the trimmed substrate proportion is based on independent scientific data.
• The proportion must be fairly applied to all QCF collectors for quota equity purposes (ie. it represents the current fishery and is not unfairly biased to any individual or region).

Objectives:
1. Determine a statistically robust sample size
2. Determine the geographical pattern of port unloads in the Queensland Coral Fishery from the most recently completed quota year
3. Determine the proportion of samples to be undertaken in various ports such that the sample is representative of collection in the fishery
4. Determine the trimmed substrate percentage of the total weight of the Specialty Coral component of the unload, as it was reported to Fisheries Queensland
5. Determine the average percentage across all samples
6. Submit final report by 30 April 2017

Funded Activity Details

Start Date: 01-10-2016

End Date: 30-04-2017

Funding Scheme: Funding Scheme not available

Funding Amount: $24,000.00

Funder: Fisheries Research and Development Corporation

Research Topics

ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)

There are no FoR codes available for this funding activity

ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)

There are no SEO codes available for this funding activity

Other Keywords

Analytics | Fisheries Management | Habitat | Harvest Strategy | Market opportunities | RAC QLD | Risk reduction | Social Licence | Species Identification | Sustainability | Wild Catch

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