2021 State of the Environment Report Marine Chapter – Expert Assessment – Pressure – Recreational 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 "Pressures on the marine environment - recreational 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 - Recreational fishing"</em></strong>



DESCRIPTION OF PRESSURE
Coastal recreational fisheries are often characterised by a concentration of effort close to large urban population centres (West et al., 2015; Ryan et al., 2019). In the last thirty years, however, improved infrastructure, shifting demographics and increased tourism has led to a growth in recreational fishing in regional areas (Voyer et al., 2017). Coastal recreational fisheries now have increasingly widespread pressure but with intensity highly variable over multiple timescales (hours, days, seasons and years) (Smallwood et al., 2011; Smallwood et al., 2012; Lynch, 2014; Flynn et al., 2018; Lynch et al., 2020a). For both coastal and offshore marine waters there are also spatially stable hotspots of effort that are associated with habitat features and/or access points (Lynch, 2006; Lynch, 2014; Wood et al., 2016; Flynn et al., 2018)  

Offshore marine waters have become more accessible to recreational fishing over the last decade due to increased sophistication, affordability, and availability of navigation, searching and fishing tackle technologies (Griffiths &amp; Fay, 2015). Three major species groups are targeted by recreational fishers in offshore Commonwealth waters: (i) large pelagic fishes that occupy vast expanses of the open ocean (e.g. tunas and billfishes); (ii) deep-water demersal species that are often caught beyond the continental shelf or on sea mounts (e.g. blue eye trevalla); and, (iii) tropical reef species that inhabit remote coral reefs (e.g. lutjanids) (Zischke et al., 2012; Griffiths and Fay, 2015).  Despite the lower levels of recreational effort documented in Australia’s offshore waters,  recreational fishing does exert pressure on these marine populations, but where it has been identified as impacting it is being managed through a variety of mechanisms (Moore et al., 2015; Tracey et al., 2020)  

DATA STREAM(S) USED IN EXPERT ASSESSMENT
Synthesis of literature published in the last 5 years and expert knowledge of the assessment authors. 



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

• 2021 •
Assessment grade: High impact
Assessment trend: Stable
Confidence grade: Adequate high-quality evidence and high level of consensus
Confidence trend: Limited evidence or limited consensus
Comparability: Grade and trend are comparable to the 2016 assessment 
• 2016 •
Assessment grade: High impact
Assessment trend: Stable
Confidence grade: Adequate high-quality evidence and high level of consensus
Confidence trend: Limited evidence or limited consensus
Comparability: Grade and trend are not comparable to the 2011 assessment
• 2011 •
Assessment grade: Low impact
Assessment trend: Improving
Confidence grade: Adequate high-quality evidence and high level of consensus
Confidence trend: Limited evidence or limited consensus



CHANGES SINCE 2016 SOE ASSESSMENT
Consistent with 2016 assessment.

Tags: anthropogenic pressures, expert assessment, fisheries management, fishing pressure
Organization: Australian Ocean Data Network