In the early 1990s, a national consensus was reached among all levels of government for the need to apply the principles of Ecologically Sustainable Development (ESD) in all activities. By the late 1990s, this meant that the fishing industry was facing greater accountability for their direct and indirect impacts on the marine environment, which culminated in the passing of the Commonwealth’s EPBC Act. The resultant challenge was how to address these issues in a practical manner.

Consequently, in March 2000, FRDC funded a workshop in Geelong attended by all jurisdictions, commercial and recreational fishing groups and non-government organisations. They identified a set of nationally based projects that were to facilitate the incorporation of ESD into the management arrangements of all Australian fisheries. Through these projects, which were coordinated by the ESD Subprogram, an ESD framework plus a suite of tools for wild capture fisheries (and other sectors) were generated.

It has subsequently been recognised that ESD must now extend beyond the individual fishery to cover all fishing activities within a region. This level is termed Ecosystem Based Fisheries Management (EBFM). Several jurisdictions (eg WA) have already commenced major programs to implement EBFM using an adaptation of the basic ESD framework. There are also a growing number of regional marine planning initiatives being undertaken by both state and federal agencies that are seeking to address all fishing and non fishing marine activities.

Fittingly, a key finding of the recent CSIRO review of ESD implementation was the need for a national forum to coordinate approaches to EBFM. Consensus is needed on the degree to which an integrated, national approach should be taken to further develop tools for EBFM and regional marine planning, or whether these should continue to be developed using jurisdictional based approaches.