Australian fisheries, including trawl fisheries, need to ensure they met legislative requirements to ensure they have no unacceptable impacts on ecosystems. Similarly, the marine ecosystems and its biodiversity need to be conserved and protected. This project links across sustainability and conservation management objectives by building and extending previous works such as FRDC 2003-021 and FRDC 2016-039, works that provide/establish regional and national regionally relevant clarification of the seabed mapping and landscape-scale fishing footprints, and exposure and protection of demersal assemblages with respect to trawling.
Although significant bycatch data are available (mostly for fishes) for some trawl grounds in the region, such data are needed broadly across the study area (including for invertebrates) and there is almost no information on the distribution and abundance of habitats and sensitive habitat-forming benthos. Currently, this lack of adequate biological data is an impediment to completing bycatch and habitat ERAs for these priority areas. Thus, a pre-requisite need is to survey these areas for distribution and abundance of sensitive habitats and bycatch species.
This project will then fill the existing gaps and needs in the southern portion of QLD and north-eastern of NSW with new data & methods and new risk-based management assessments to implement a consistent spatial approach for the conservation management of demersal assemblages applying to all continental shelf trawl fisheries. This will be done in collaboration with researchers in each State, industry and commonwealth managers.
This project proposes to conduct the required distribution and abundance surveys, and then assess whether sensitive habitats and bycatch species are at substantive risk from trawling. If necessary, the project would also evaluate risk-management options that may be proposed, using an objective MSE-type approach. Methods and outputs proposed herein would be comparable with those from the previous GBR Seabed Project (FRDC 2003-021). Previous sampling in the GBR, southern Queensland and northern NSW, would be taken into account.
Project number:
2020-026
Project Status:
Current
Budget expenditure:
$2,156,521.00
Principal Investigator:
Rodrigo H. Bustamante
Organisation:
CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere Hobart
Project start/end date:
30 Jun 2022
-
29 Nov 2025
Contact:
FRDC
1. Map the distribution and abundance of habitats and bycatch species in southern Queensland and northern NSW, with focus on trawl-exposed eco-regions,
2. Complete quantitative risk assessments for seabed habitats and bycatch species,
3. Use an objective MSE-type approach, if required, to evaluate any risk-management options proposed for sensitive habitats and bycatch species.
PROJECT NUMBER
•
2023-072
PROJECT STATUS:
CURRENT
Educational travel trip for Ocean Trap and Line industry development to explore alternative fishing practices which help prevent TEP species interactions and ghost fishing
1. Enable Australian fishing industry representatives to attend the 2023 Ropeless Consortium conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia (and industry meetings)
ORGANISATION:
OceanWatch Australia Ltd
PROJECT NUMBER
•
2023-036
PROJECT STATUS:
CURRENT
Understanding drivers of jellyfish blooms in the Hawkesbury estuary
1. Review the environmental drivers of jellyfish blooms, methods used by commercial fishers to manage interactions with jellyfish and methods that could be used to control jellyfish populations.
ORGANISATION:
Griffith University Gold Coast Campus
PROJECT NUMBER
•
2023-009
PROJECT STATUS:
CURRENT
Reducing impacts on threatened, endangered, and protected species in the Queensland East Coast Otter Trawl Fishery
1. Quantify the effect of bycatch reduction devices on sea snakes in Queensland’s trawl fishery and facilitate the uptake of these devices by industry.
ORGANISATION:
Department of Agriculture and Fisheries EcoScience Precinct