Back to index
Back to handheld edition
Issue 52 | May 2009
Australia has won international acclaim for its world-leading approach to the management of marine fisheries, underpinned by innovative science.
Two Australian prawn fisheries have been dubbed 'global models' by The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, and an international conference has concluded Australia leads the world in practical implementation of ecosystem based fishery management (EBFM).
The UN report, Global study of shrimp fisheries, published in January 2009, commends Australia's Northern Prawn Fishery (NPF) and Spencer Gulf Prawn fisheries as being global models for their inclusive, flexible, responsive, equitable and measurable management.
CSIRO's Marine and Atmospheric Research has maintained a 45-year research partnership with the NPF that has guided steps taken by industry and managers to address challenges, including over-fishing of tiger prawn stocks, and the impact of fishing on marine habitats and communities.
In recent years the partnership has helped the NPF embrace economic efficiency as well as environmental sustainability as a management goal, a world first for a major fishery. The NPF is now trialling a self-management approach audited by the Australian Fisheries Management Authority.
As well as working closely with the NPF, scientists from the Wealth from Oceans Flagship have provided practical scientific tools to support EBFM across Australia's Commonwealth-managed fisheries. These were pronounced world-leading in implementation of EBFM at the international conference in Seattle, USA, 'On the ground and in the water: Ecosystem-based fisheries management in practice' in April–May.
The EBFM tools developed by CSIRO include an innovative method for ecological risk assessment for the effects of fishing (ERAEF), and a modelling framework, Atlantis, that can evaluate whole-of-fishery management systems against EBFM objectives.
ERAEF has been used to screen more than 2000 species impacted by Australian fisheries – from the tropics to the sub-Antarctic, and from the coast to waters below 1000 metres – and is now being applied internationally. Atlantis has been used to help redesign management strategies in Australia's south-eastern fisheries and is being applied in several other regions in Australia and overseas. In 2007, Atlantis was rated by the FAO as the best ecosystem model in the world for evaluating fishery management strategies.
Prawn Trawler
