The Queensland Coral Fishery (QCF) operates within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. It operates under quota within a Total Allowable Catch (TAC). Catch is recorded in two categories. “Specialty Coral” and “Other Coral”. Specialty Coral quota constrains the collection of CITES corals to sustainable levels.

Globally regarded as one of the best managed coral fisheries, social acceptability of wild-harvest aquarium fisheries constantly challenges the existence of the QCF. This challenge is partway met by ensuring catch reporting in the QCF sets global standards for accuracy and transparency. Major reforms introduced to catch reporting in 2016 for the QCF raise these standards further. The reporting reforms will underpin assessments of ecological risk and environmental performance, the CITES non-detriment finding, and to maintain national and international market access.

The new measures now require the reporting of total actual weights for CITES corals, however it does not account for the weight of substrate attached to the actual coral when collected, which is typically removed after landing. Industry successfully advocated that trimmed substrate should not be allocated to Specialty Coral quota and that 25% of the weight should be allocated to Other Coral. This allows the true value and accurate weight of Specialty Coral quota to be realized and the total weight accounted for in the TAC. However the 25% figure is based solely on industry experience and requires independent validation. To ensure reporting is both accurate and has potential application to other fisheries, validating the quantum of trimmed substrate is critical. This project will provide this validation.

It is important that the proportion of trimmed substrate is validated through an independent scientific study for the following reasons:

• Continued social acceptance of the QCF.
• Fisheries Queensland, and the Commonwealth Department of the Environment and Energy require that the trimmed substrate proportion is based on independent scientific data.
• The proportion must be fairly applied to all QCF collectors for quota equity purposes (ie. it represents the current fishery and is not unfairly biased to any individual or region).