Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2022L01285:reg:9:p1
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2022L01285
Segment Type: reg
Provision Reference: reg 9 (pt 1/2)
Character Range: 200834–203924

9                   Social and economic considerations
This recovery plan is not linked directly to any Australian Government funding programs. However, the plan helps direct the focus of government funding programs to activities that will help to meet identified actions. While the Australian Government is unable to provide funding to cover all actions in this plan, it is committed to implement the plan to the extent to which it applies in Commonwealth areas. Investment in addressing the threats to the conservation of albatrosses and petrels will be further determined by the level of resources that the fishing industry, government and non-government stakeholders are also able to commit to implementation of the actions under the plan.
The successful implementation of the actions under this recovery plan will rely on support from stakeholders. Partnerships involving the fishing industry, government and non-government organisations, universities, community groups and Indigenous groups will be key to successfully delivering the actions under the plan.
The plan does not of itself impose any economic burdens on fishers, rather it supports the implementation of related threat abatement plans (Commonwealth of Australia 2018a, 2018b) and the NPOA-Seabirds (DAWR 2018). However, the imposition of technical and operational mitigation measures may have financial impacts on fishers. These may be partially offset, for example, if measures to avoid or minimise interactions with seabirds result in a market advantage for fish marketed as being caught in a manner that avoids seabird bycatch.
While wildlife tourism attracts many visitors (Higginbottom 2004), with bird watching activities among seabird colonies being particularly attractive tourist destinations (for example, Yorio et al. 2001), this activity along with recreational boating and fishing may disturb albatrosses and petrels at their breeding sites, as well as foraging birds adjacent to these locations. Restrictions on access to albatross and petrel breeding sites in Australia have been in place under previous recovery plans and do not generally impact landowners, land managers and developers. Albatrosses and petrels are found on remote, offshore island locations, and access to individual albatross and petrel populations is restricted by significant logistical difficulties. These sites are, therefore, relatively less attractive for ecotourism and other visitation, when compared to mainland bird colonies. Biosecurity protocols applying to research activities helps minimise the risk of introduction of pest species, and thereby avoid the need for future pest eradication programs, as was necessary to eradicate cats, rabbits, rats and mice from Macquarie Island (Robinson & Copson 2014, Alderman et al. 2019).

There is potential for social benefits to flow from community members engaging in citizen science concerning albatrosses and petrels. For example, a small, dedicated group has been conducting routine surveys of offshore seabird abundance in New South Wales waters for nearly 20 years (Gorta et