Australian fisheries, including trawl fisheries, need to ensure they met legislative requirements to ensure they have no unacceptable impacts on ecosystems. Linked to this need, the annual Status of Australian Fish Stocks (SAFS) reports are intended to include broader environmental reporting including indicators such as the “habitat footprint” of fishing.

CSIRO has been assisting AFMA to meet these requirements, recently taking into account new data & methods — and new management — to implement a consistent spatial approach to mapping demersal ‘assemblages’ & applying it to Commonwealth bottom trawl fisheries (FRDC 2014/204).

There is a need to extend this approach to all continental shelf trawl fisheries, in collaboration with researchers in each State, to meet assessment & reporting requirements and deliver benefits to all jurisdictions. Most of the data required are available & ready to use for the purpose, with some new data to be collated; the methods are now established & successfully demonstrated, hence the work can be completed cost-effectively. Further, the ecological maps provided by national assemblages mapping can be used as a spatial framework to underpin similar footprint assessments for other fisheries & offshore industries.

These needs have been identified at a recent (Feb 2016) ‘FRDC Key Projects Workshop’ to develop a strategic plan for delivery of FRDCs Priority 1: “Ensuring that Australian fishing & aquaculture products are sustainable & acknowledged to be so”.

Australian abalone currently enjoys a relatively strong position in the market through steady demand for product. This will only continue as long as the resource is sustainable. Industry will benefit through the application of leading edge or state of the art technology and world's best practices in management, research and resource protection.

Presently no mechanism exists for effective interchange of ideas, or to consider leading edge technology, or to benefit from learning of the trials and tribulations other State's have experienced. This convention will present excellent opportunities for communications with contacts from all over the globe.

Other similar conferences, symposiums appear to focus more on the technical aspect of management and research with little or no input from industry for industry concerns. The notion for a national convention evolved when a number of abalone industry members met at the FishRights99 conference in Fremantle and the 4th International Abalone Symposium in Cape Town.

There is a need for all States to be involved in a national forum and for industry Australia wide to focus on management, marketing, R & D issues, resource protection and commence formulating national plans or strategies to focus on achieving the desired outcomes.

The 1993 Fishing Industry National Study (FINS) clearly identified that more cohesive and efficient delivery of the types services now provided under SSA’s umbrella was required to address important areas of market failure in the seafood industry and to help the industry identify and captilise on significant opportunities for industry development through post harvest value adding.

SSA’s products, services, and its comprehensive standards development process, are recognised nationally, by industry and governments, as having contributed significantly to the development of the Australian seafood industry, especially through keeping the industry abreast of legislative and technological change. SSA’s work is also being recognised internationally and used as a model for other primary industry sectors. See Appendix C – SSA Annual Operating Plan, December 2001 to June 2002. Recent evaluations have identified opportunities to further improve SSA’s delivery of products and services to all sectors of the industry.

Incorporation of SSA Ltd establishes a rigorous, transparent and accountable management regime with significant industry ownership that will further focus the SSA’s activities through corporate leadership, strategic vision and closer links with the industry on a national basis. Formal corporate directorship processes will also ensure SSA’s operates strategically within the broad industry development program outlined in the Investing for tomorrow’s fish: the FRDC’s research and development plan, 2000 to 2005.

The SSA Network brings together industry and government members from each State and Territory, and the Commonwealth to seek solutions to a wide range of seafood supply chain issues, including issues of market failure, from seafood safety through to environmental management systems. Experience over the past three years has demonstrated the pivotal role the Network plays in achieving SSA's outcomes so successfully. This project will strengthen the Network so that it can continue to have input into priorities and work programs, thereby ensuring SSA Ltd activities are responsive, cohesive, and appropriately targeted.

SSA Ltd provides a flexible and responsive mechanism that will for the first time, enable the seafood industry to attract private and public funding for seafood industry development from non-traditional funding sources. It will do this by encouraging and supporting people, businesses and organisations in the seafood industry who want to:
1. continually improve and add value to their businesses,
2. continually improve their environmental performance,
3. meet consumer expectations (especially in having high levels of confidence in Australian seafood products), and
4. receive broad community support for their activities.

SSA Ltd will is uniquely poised to foster unprecedented and sustainable seafood industry development, generating significant social and economic benefits to Australia.

Managers need to be provided with information that will ensure that fishing mortalities remain below the appropriate biological reference points for the key species.

To provide this information, knowledge is required of the relationship between fishing effort and fishing mortality. An experimental approach which provides a clearly measurable level of fishing mortality will achieve this. The fish in the 100-200m depth zone are schooling species and commercial effort will naturally be targeted on schools, so commercial catch rates cannot be used for the abundance measures required to calculate fishing mortality. There is a need therefore for survey fishing before and after the period of intense commercial fishing and for research personnel to oversee the survey fishing, gather samples and information on the survey cruises, process these at the laboratory and analyse the results. Monitoring of the fishing effort through research logbooks during the commercial fishing period is also required.

There is a critical need for information to support management decisions about inshore fisheries resources, and to address rising industry, conservation and public concern about the impact of net fishing on sustainability and biodiversity of the ecosystem and habitats associated with the fishery. The theory of measuring changes in biodiversity have yet to be applied in net fisheries. This project will be a test case for the practical application of determining net fishing effects on biodiversity.

Information on the effect of net fishing on bycatch and biodiversity in Australia is extremely limited. While some data exist on the marketed catch, the quantity and nature of bycatch remains virtually unknown. There is little information on the total catch characteristics of net fisheries, the proportions of species caught, and the proportion of the resource harvested each year. Similarly little is known about the fate of fish discarded from nets which would help to characterise the impact of net fishing on biodiversity.

This project will address the urgent need for information on the: total catch composition from net fishing, fate of discarded fish bycatch, impact on protected species and impact on biodiversity. Baseline data collected through both fishery dependent and independent methods will provide a basis for long term monitoring of the fishery and will enhance the interpretation of existing commercial catch records. These data will help meet the requirements of the ‘National Strategy for Conservation of Australia’s Biological Biodiversity’ of a) improving the knowledge base of fisheries, b) improving fisheries management and c) assessing and minimising the impact of commercial fishery practices on non-target and bycatch species, ecosystems and genetic diversity.