2021 State of the Environment Report Marine Chapter – Expert Assessment – Management Effectiveness – Commercial fishing

The Marine chapter of the 2021 State of the Environment (SoE) report incorporates multiple expert templates developed from streams of marine data. This metadata record describes the Expert Assessment "Management Effectiveness of Commercial fishing". 
<strong><em>A PDF of the full Expert Assessment, including figures and tables (where provided) is downloadable in the "On-line Resources" section of this record as "EXPERT ASSESSMENT 2021 - Management Effectiveness - Commercial Fishing"</em></strong>



DESCRIPTION OF THE APPROACH TO MANAGING THE PRESSURE
All Australian jurisdictions understand the direct pressures that commercial fishing has on the marine environment. Almost all management agencies across Australia are using evidence-based processes such as harvest strategies for commercially important species to determine sustainable catch levels, and risk-based assessments of the broader ecosystem effects of fishing. Implementation, however, is not uniform with some stocks having an unknown sustainability status. 
The Australian partnership approach between managers, commercial fishers, scientists and other stakeholders is recognised globally as a standard for fisheries management (Marchal et al., 2016). Management agencies rely to varying degrees on co-funding of management costs from industry. Increased use of risk-based intelligence-gathering and reporting of fishing activity, and uptake of vessel monitoring systems is benefitting compliance. 
Australian jurisdictions have sought to implement single jurisdiction stock management where possible. Historically, the Offshore Constitutional Settlement has been the primary means to do so. More recently the emphasis has been to develop common (cross-jurisdictional) stock assessments and harvest strategies for shared stocks without changes in jurisdiction. 
Spatial management is used widely to reduce conflicts between sectors and increasingly to reduce the fishing impacts on vulnerable species and habitats. Some closures prohibit specific fishing methods within sensitive habitats. An increasing range of mechanisms and technical tools are being used to reduce interactions with seabirds, marine mammals, reptiles and other vulnerable species. Such bycatch reduction devices include tori lines, sprayers, seal and turtle excluder devices. 
Management agencies and industry recognise that climate change is affecting Australian fisheries, and the changing nature of marine ecosystems is receiving greater attention. However, implementation challenges remain.
Management across sectors remains a challenge in terms of both of accurate data collection to understand stock status, and resource sharing. Cross-sectoral management with recreational sector continues to improve with several jurisdictions committed to regular surveys and rules around catch limits that better reflect stock levels. Traditional fishing is being increasingly recognised, but there remains no common agreement between indigenous Australians and jurisdictions about how to move forward.
A range of best practice guidelines for fisheries management have been developed (Penney et al. 2016; Hobday et al. 2019; Sloane et al. 2014) and are steadily being deployed. Small-scale/data-limited fisheries are prevalent and remain a challenge (Hill et al., submitted; Dowling et al. 2016). Jurisdictions have begun to use a range of processes and decision-support tools to better ensure the sustainability of these fisheries including harvest strategies.  

DATA STREAM(S) USED IN EXPERT ASSESSMENT
not supplied



2021 SOE ASSESSMENT SUMMARY [see attached Expert Assessment for full details]

• Approach •
Assessment grade: Effective
Assessment trend: Improving
Confidence grade: Adequate
Confidence trend: Adequate
Comparability with 2016: Somewhat comparable. Increased uptake of harvest strategies and ecological risk assessments by most jurisdictions.
• Outputs •
Assessment grade: Effective
Assessment trend: Improving
Confidence grade: Adequate
Confidence trend: Adequate
Comparability with 2016: Comparable. Number of stocks assessed nationally by SAFS has increased since 2016. 
• Outcomes •
Assessment grade: Effective
Assessment trend: Improving
Confidence grade: Adequate
Confidence trend: Adequate
Comparability with 2016: Comparable. Improving recognition of key threats in policy and management, including climate change, cross jurisdictional issues and recreational fishing. 



CHANGES SINCE 2016 SOE ASSESSMENT
not supplied

Tags: anthropogenic pressure, commercial fishing, expert assessment, marine management
Organization: Australian Ocean Data Network