2016 SoE Marine Chapter - Effectiveness of Management - Traditional use of marine resources

The Marine chapter of the 2016 State of the Environment (SoE) report incorporates multiple expert templates developed from streams of marine data. This metadata record describes the Expert Assessment "Effectiveness of marine management of traditional use of marine resources". The full Expert Assessment, including figures and tables (where provided), is attached to this record. Where available, the Data Stream(s) used to generate this Expert Assessment are accessible through the "On-line Resources" section of this record.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PRESSURE BEING MANAGED, AND ITS IMPACT
Quantifying the traditional use of marine resources by Indigenous communities is difficult due to the dispersed and sporadic nature of much traditional harvesting and the often complex and sensitive process of building community endorsement for long term monitoring programs to quantify harvest levels.  Across Australia, there is a high diversity of community initiatives for monitoring and managing traditional harvest due to the specific local context for planning, managing and conservation. Since the 2011 assessment, the workforce of Indigenous rangers has grown around Australia and this has increased the on-ground capacity for monitoring the traditional take (e.g., GBRMPA, 2011; DIPF, 2013).  In the Great Barrier Reef, as part of a Traditional use of marine resource agreement (TUMRA), Traditional owners are required to monitor, record and report traditional harvest activities (GBRMPA, 2008).  In the Northern Territory, Indigenous rangers record information on the loss or return of aquatic species (e.g. fish, dugong, turtles) in their patrol areas (DIPF, 2013). Kimberley coastal communities are advancing with developing and implementing monitoring and evaluation frameworks (Jackson et al., 2015).  Wide scale involvement of Indigenous rangers in monitoring programs also occurs in the Torres Strait (Johnson et al., 2015).  Even with increased effort dedicated to Indigenous natural and cultural resource management, results have been mixed, with many projects falling well short of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous expectations (Barbour &amp; Schlesinger, 2012).  Natural and cultural resource management is considered a worthy and necessary goal (Ens et al., 2012), yet designing and implementing programs to achieve sustainability goals are not straightforward (Dressler et al., 2010).  Determining whether traditional harvest is sustainable needs to be assessed on a case-by-case community basis given the wider ecological and pressure conditions within an area and as such, it is important to consider the state of the harvested population, state of supporting habitats, range of threats, and controls to limit human impacts.
DATA STREAM(S) USED IN EXPERT ASSESSMENT
The information used in the assessment was based on extracting insightful statements from reports and articles across Australia on Traditional use of marine resources. No data sets were used to generate this assessment.
2016 SOE ASSESSMENT SUMMARY [see attached Expert Assessment for full details]
• Understanding of pressure: Gradual shift from the well-recognised need to understand sustainable traditional harvest levels towards building on-ground capacity and solutions for quantifying this level.
• Planning associated with management of pressure: Indigenous-driven planning is growing yet it is not consistently linked to a framework that assesses the performance of stated objectives.
• Input for informing management of pressure: Further progress on consistent recording and storing of data on traditional harvesting is needed before it informs management frameworks about the impact of this use.
• Processes associated with developing, monitoring, and updating management: An extensive range of Indigenous-based initiatives are advancing to support the management of Traditional use of marine resources; assessing their performance is the next increment for effective management.
• Outputs from management framework in place: Improved community involvement for developing protocols for cultural resource management is empowering Indigenous people to make more informed decisions about regulatory solutions.
• Outcomes of management framework in place: Indigenous-driven planning and management achieves higher environmental outcomes; greater effectiveness with rolling forward programs to meet future priorities and challenges.
CHANGES SINCE 2011 SOE ASSESSMENT
Effectiveness of management associated with the traditional use of resources was not included in the 2011 assessment.

Tags: expert assessment, marine resources
Organization: Australian Ocean Data Network