In the past about 6y there has been a huge investment in developing and conducting ESD reports and assessments, and in management actions to implement fisheries ESD. This includes ESD reporting, assessment and management by the fishery agency in each jurisdiction, and from the ESD assessments conducted by the Department of Environment and Heritage (DEH) to implement the EPBC Act. Many approaches have been tried and many fisheries have been involved. While this experience is somewhat scattered it provides practical guidance about the scope of fisheries ESD, the assessment methods, the indicators and benchmarks, the management responses, the R&D needs and response, and bottlenecks to progress in implementation. And in addition the last few years has seen a proliferation of names and concepts develop in relation to addressing the broader ecosystem issues of fisheries.
Fisheries agencies, individually and collectively through for a such as MACC and the Australian Fisheries Management Forum, are seeking clarity on the scope of fisheries ESD in relation to other concepts and terms that bring broader ecosystem considerations into fisheries. And they are actively considering the most appropriate next steps in the evolution and achievement of ESD, be it consolidation on some or all of the current approaches and/or development of new approaches. The project proposed here will review the current experience to inform that decision making.
Final report
In 1997 the FRDC Board initiated a review of ESD application across jurisdictions (FRDC Project 98/168), and later worked with the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Aquaculture (SCFA) to develop a national approach to ESD in fisheries. Following on from this project, the FRDC Board suggested that a national review be conducted of the scope, assessment methods and management responses for Fisheries ESD and EBFM, and to clarify understanding of the relationship between fisheries ESD and other similar approaches or terms. This review would provide an opportunity to repeat the national ‘snapshot’ of experience and approaches across jurisdictions (provided by Project 98/168), for the period from 1998 to 2006.
A key finding of this study is a widespread view that there is an ongoing need for a national forum to coordinate approaches to EBFM. Such a national forum should bring together a range of stakeholders involved in the development and implementation of EBFM, including fishery managers, industry, environmental agencies and Non Government Organisations (NGOs), and various disciplinary experts.
