Project number: 2018-172
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $820,380.00
Principal Investigator: Rachel King
Organisation: Australian Council of Prawn Fisheries Ltd (ACPF)
Project start/end date: 28 Feb 2019 - 28 May 2020
Contact:
FRDC

Need

While Australia’s increasingly urban Australian community has limited understanding, interest and trust about the origin of their food, food producers are sitting on the precipice of loss of social licence. This was demonstrated in the ‘Super Trawler’ debate.

Australia’s wild prawn industry is Australia’s largest wild catch trawling sector. The ACPF has included advice on where its social licence risks lie, and the most effective modes of community engagement, into this proposal. This proposal has the clear goal of protecting the industry’s access to the natural resource. Engaging the community on issues that the industry and community commonly share, with the aim of continuing the conversation, is the mechanism by which ACPF intends to achieve the goal.

The ACPF meeting of members on 26 September 2018 prioritised the need to focus on unaddressed ACPF IPA Community Program outcomes relating to wild caught prawn provenance as one of three highest priorities for 2019. The ACPF Board agreed that the scope of what is required to achieve the goal requires more of its budget than was built into the ACPF outputs in FRDC project 2017/242 (Our pledge) to "Demonstrate and evaluate the effectiveness of a community engagement and communication strategy that is built on recognised shared values and commitment to supporting industry behaviours" (Extension of proof of concept - prawns).

This project serves two needs;
1. a community introduction to each wild prawn fishery AND profiles of commonly held values

2. evaluation of the effectiveness of a range of community engagement tools, beyond the usual social media launch, that allow the industry to continue the conversation over a long period
Note: The method enabling future engagement will be included in the brief to creative agencies for Stage 2 engagement tools. Tools may include but not limited to social media.

Objectives

1. Improve community acceptance of the wild prawn industry using fisheries based authentic stories addressing commonly held values (as described by Project 2017-242 Our Pledge) and relevant prawn RD&E initiatives
2. Implement engagement tools based on community behaviour insights that provide repeat and long term connection with the community at points of community interaction
3. Build a database of engaged community members to which ACPF can communicate on its commitment and achievements against Our Pledge, to receive questions and feedback
4. Measure effectiveness of community engagement method through evaluation channels eg commissioned community evaluation

Final report

ISBN: 978-0-6453312-1-9
Author: Rachel King
Final Report • 2022-05-18 • 5.13 MB
2018-172 DLD.pdf

Summary

The wild prawn industry, as a key influencer of the community's (sustainability) perception of the Australian seafood industry, has addressed identified risks to social license so that it can protect its legal license to operate in public waters. This report provides the results and conclusions on the interventions and methods trialled to engage the community. These included printed collateral for retailers and videos.

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