Best practice guidelines for Australian fisheries management agencies

Project number: 2015-203

Project Status:

Completed

Budget expenditure: $410,115.00

Principal Investigator: Alistair Hobday

Organisation: CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere Hobart

Project start/end date: 30 Jun 2015 - 23 Oct 2017

Contact:

FRDC

Need

There is a need for greater efficiency in government while reducing red and green tape, simplifying regulation and pursuing sustainable and profitable fisheries. In doing so, fisheries management also aims to gain and maintain the trust and confidence of fishery stakeholders and the general public by ensuring management is a transparent and participatory process. The current operating environment for fisheries and fishing businesses involves a range of practices and policies applied by a range of regulators with lack of consistency at whole of government level and among jurisdictions considerable duplication in process. There would be considerable benefits to reducing this complexity by adopting nationally agreed standards for fisheries management. While this is clearly a task for government, a strategic research project could assist by reviewing existing international standards and domestic arrangements, and by laying the groundwork for a national debate about consistent and agreed fisheries management standards that would reduce costs for industry, simplify the task for fishery regulators, while simultaneously meeting public expectations for transparent processes and good fisheries management.

Objectives

1. Review existing and emerging standards for fisheries management

2. Benchmark current management practices – regulatory processes, policies, guidelines and standards – across all Australian fishery management jurisdictions

3. Identify options for a national set of auditable standards for fisheries management in Australia

Final report

ISBN: 978-1-4863-1277-1

Authors: Alistair Hobday Rich Little Cathy Bulman Caleb Gardner Belinda McGrath-Steer Emily Ogier Nick Rayns Sevaly Sen Sean Sloan Tony Smith Linda Thomas

Final Report • 2019-05-30 • 7.06 MB

2015-203-DLD Fisheries Agency Guidelines.pdf

Summary

The project was developed in consultation with the Australian Fisheries Management Authority and State/Territory fisheries agencies. The idea of a publicly available set of standards or guidelines for marine fishery management agencies has been under discussion within fisheries agencies for some time and is consistent with broader directions in government policy and expectations of stakeholders and the broader community. The main output of this project is a set of guidelines provided in a Guidance Document, which are provided as a stand-alone component of this final report (Box 1). This final report provides only a high level overview of the project for reporting purposes, and we suggest most readers will get all they need from the Guidance Document.

Final Report • 2019-05-30 • 2.79 MB

2015-203-DLD Appendix 1 Fisheries Standards Updates.pdf

Summary

At the first project meeting held in November, the team scoped the landscape of related projects to identify synergy; worked to understand and develop definitions of standards, benchmarks and guidelines; reviewed market place trends and discussed the implications of all of these on Australian fisheries. The meeting brought out differing views on project scope and on what type of standard would be developed. One of the main discussion points was the difference between a product standard, and a process standard. There was broad agreement that there are many fishery product standards, applicable to a range of fisheries (less so for smallscale, low-value, data-deficient fisheries), but there are fewer process standards relating to how fisheries are managed.

Final Report • 2019-05-30 • 4.04 MB

2015-203-DLD Guidance Document.pdf

Summary

As a step towards creating a national standard for fisheries management, this project has focused on creating a best practice method, through the development of National Fisheries Management Guidelines. The Guidelines provide a framework regarding the approaches and information that will help them achieve best practice and ultimately lead to the development of a standard if sought in the future. We note the difference between a product standard, and a process standard. There are many fishery product standards, applicable to a range of fisheries and the seafood they harvest, but there are fewer process standards relating to how fisheries are managed. As a step towards creating standards for fisheries management, a best practice is a method or technique that has been generally accepted as superior to any alternatives because it produces results that are better than those achieved by other means. In this sense, the Guidelines provide information to fishery management agencies and their stakeholders regarding the approaches that will help agencies pursue their objectives.

In summary, this document:
1. Outlines the need for Guidelines and their context
2. Describes how the functions were identified and tested
3. Describes the functions
4. Shows application to agencies
5. Provides guidance on how to implement these Guidelines
6. Shows application to fisheries via a set of case studies
These Guidelines should be reviewed and updated on a five year basis, as best practice will certainly evolve over that period of time.