Environmental performance will be one of the most important drivers of future fishing industry profitability. There is a growing recognition amongst the industry's grass roots that long-term profitability will require maintainence of existing resource and market access - access that is only possible with improved environmental performance and demonstrated triple bottom line sustainability.

Projects that assist in motivating and demonstrating continual improvement in the industry's environmental performance are clearly within industry's interest, and will assist in increasing community and consumer confidence in the sustainability of wild capture fisheries.

Methodologies to assist in motivating and demonstrating continual environmental improvement in the seafood industry have been the subject of significant investment at the policy level but remain largely unimplemented on the ground at broad scale. This project aims to roll out 'green chooser' (FRDC 2000/146) derived EMS methodologies across two broad scale pilot project areas both subject to a high degree of community scrutiny (Moreton Bay, Cairns inshore fishery). In doing so the project will 'road test' the existing green chooser EMS model and refine it where necessary to ensure it is relevant to the needs of grass roots industry.

In addition, improvement of incentives for adoption of best practice will greatly assist industry environmental performance while providing significant opportunities to reduce management and compliance costs. In the long-term, the project aims to improve overall industry profitability by assisting Queensland fishers demonstrate the benefits of low cost and high performance co-management arrangements.

For collaborative agencies involved fisheries regulation there is a strong recognition that EMS can provide reform mechanisms which are industry driven. Further, for these agencies the project provides an alternate tool to demonstrate that state (e.g. QFS), national and international (e.g. Environment Australia) sustainability obligations are being met. Moreover, the proposed project can offer relevant agencies the opportunity to further streamline, co-ordinate and integrate parallel programs (incl. extension & compliance) at fisher level. These needs are reflected in the high number of collaborative agencies involved in the project.

The recently released mid-review findings of the Seafood Industry Training Package Review recommend a stronger emphasis on environmental awareness and promotion of ESD and environmental management throughout the training package - a need which is also reflected in the Seafood Training Australia’s Strategic Training Plan for 2001-2002.

The proposed project can operationally deliver QFIRAC and FRDC priorities, as envisaged by the FRDC's Environmental Management Systems Initiative (FRDC Project 2000/084). FRDC, in creating its EMS initiative has allocated funds to ensure the persons employed under this initiative and associated industry champions are appropriately trained for their roles. The proposed project can further value add and extend both current (e.g. FRDC 2002/303) and previous research investments (e.g. FRDC 2000/146).