Developing a National Bycatch Reporting System

Funded Activity Summary

The only national estimate of bycatch and discarding for Australia’s fisheries suggests that our fisheries discard more than they retain (ie. 55.3% is discarded - FAO, 2005). This figure may surprise many people including environmental groups, those concerned with "sea"-food security and protein-poor countries. This figure also has the potential to adversely affect Australia’s well-earned brand as a responsible fisheries management nation. However - this figure is probably very wrong and much too high. This project aims to correct this.

In 2012, Australia completed its first national report describing the status of Australia’s fish stocks (“Status of Key Australian Fish Stocks Reports”). An issue that arose during its preparation (from AFMF, DAFF, DoE and others) was that there exists no national system for reporting on bycatches or discards. That is, there exists no mechanism by which the public, governments, NGOs, ecolabels, other stakeholders or international agencies can assess Australia’s performance in dealing with bycatch, discards, TEPs interactions, etc.

A recent study (extension to FRDC 2013/233) summarized the recently completed US National Bycatch Report and other similar international reports (FAO’s 1994 and 2005 global reports), investigated future FAO initiatives in this area (FAO are currently planning a decadal repeat of the global report), benchmarked the current Australian situation against these, and recommended a pathway towards an appropriate national bycatch reporting system. That pathway recommended a comprehensive synthesis of available bycatch information available in Australia and the development of a repeatable reporting system, running as an adjunct to the current SAFS system, against which Australia’s record in bycatch management can be assessed against agreed best-practice benchmarks. This project aims to deliver such a system.

Objectives:
1. Using 4 jurisdictions as case studies, compile and synthesize all available reports/papers/datasets on fisheries bycatches, discards and TEPs interactions for each
2. Assess the quality of the data gathered using appropriate metrics
3. Develop templates and reporting processes, and identify programs, fisheries and/or species (including any surrogates/indicators), that together will form a national framework for bycatch reporting
4. Compile the above into a framework for future periodic bycatch reporting that dove-tails into the current SAFS system
5. Provide discard inputs (as available) for the Fisheries Health Check system being developed under FRDC 2014/008

Funded Activity Details

Start Date: 01-07-2015

End Date: 30-06-2017

Funding Scheme: Funding Scheme not available

Funding Amount: $300,000.00

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

Bycatch | Data | Discard | Electronic Monitoring | Fisheries Management | Fishing Effort | Stakeholder | Threatened Endangered Protected Species

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