Unlike rules in the worlds in which fish live, those in the world of fishery resource management are shaped by government jurisdiction and maritime boundaries, and influenced by political whim. Human conflicts often arise when fish cross ‘invisible’ lines. Our understanding of resource dynamics and management needs, and our ability to perceive and resolve conflict, may become clouded by fish-related activities in distant parts of a fish stock. What are fish stocks? Can stocks be contained within meaningful boundaries? And what are the implications of assessing resources and implementing management strategies if stocks are shared by many users, or if stock boundaries are not clearly known? Quantifying fish stocks, fishery resources and related activities is central to formulating strategies for ecologically sustainable development and management. Taking Stock: Defining and Managing Shared Resources is a pivotal issue for many Australian fishery scientists and managers.

There are numerous examples of fisheries where management strategies are compromised by poorly understood and poorly quantified fish-related activities within the ecological range of the stocks. Conflicts may arise at three scales: macro scale between nations, meso scale between states or provinces, and micro scale between stakeholders within a jurisdiction. Examples where conflicts may arise include recreational fishing, taking of by-catch, traditional fishing, fishing on grounds adjacent to Australian waters, and habitat modifications. Each of these activities can, under certain circumstances, have detrimental effects on the well-being and sustainability of fish stocks.

The ASFB-FARMAA workshop will bring together fishery scientists, managers and stakeholders to discuss methods for defining and managing stocks shared at macro, meso and micro scales. Discussions at all three scales will ensure that the workshop has wide appeal and relevance to participants. This workshop will advance our understanding of key issues, and provide benchmark information for future directions in fisheries research and management.

The independent review of performance of the FRDC, undertaken in 2018 by Forest Hill Consulting, made two recommendations that have given rise to this review:
• Recommendation 3: During the development of the next RD&E plan, FRDC should review the way it organises and manages its RD&E program (its investment and evaluation framework) with the aim of simplifying it so that it is easily understood by the average stakeholder.
• Recommendation 7: FRDC should strengthen its approach to extension, possibly by creating a specific position to oversee or coordinate extension across the organisation.

Recommendation 3 reflected a finding that the FRDC's investment and evaluation framework is very complex and difficult to understand from outside the organisation, even by stakeholders who are closely engaged with and have a good understanding of the FRDC. This is likely to be creating additional overhead cost for the organisation and for those working with it (for example, researchers submitting project applications), and leading to sub-optimal understanding by stakeholders of FRDC's performance.

The FRDC's approach to extension (recommendation 7) is closely tied to its stakeholder engagement model, hence its inclusion in the scope of the current project.