ICES Journal of Marine Science: Journal du Conseil Advance Access originally published online on April 19, 2007
ICES Journal of Marine Science: Journal du Conseil 2007 64(4):596-598; doi:10.1093/icesjms/fsm032
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The Australian government's harvest strategy policy
Australian Fisheries Management Authority, Canberra, Australia
tel: +61 2 6225 5534 fax: +61 2 6225 5300; e-mail: nick.rayns{at}afma.gov.au
Rayns, N. 2007. The Australian government's harvest strategy policy. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 64: 596–598.In December 2005, the Australian government announced its Implementation Policy for the sustainable use of its fishery resources, specifically aimed at addressing overfishing, recovering overfished stocks, and managing the impacts of fishing on the marine environment. The policy articulates the level of risk the government is willing to accept in utilizing its resources. A key part is setting default target and limit reference points for stock biomass (Btarg and Blim). The policy is currently being expanded to ensure that control rules should always return stocks to Btarg, and that target fishing will cease if Blim is reached. The expanded policy is also intended to link fisheries management and conservation law to define their respective application to fisheries better. Guidelines explain how the policy should be applied, and permit the preparation of fishery-specific harvest strategies that are scheduled to be in place by 1 January 2007.
Keywords: Australia, conservation law, fisheries management, harvest control rules, limit reference points
Received 30 June 2006; accepted 2 February 2007; advance access publication 19 April 2007.
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Introduction |
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 Top Introduction BackgroundWhy was a HSP...Development of the draft...Other implementation issuesConclusionReferences |
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Fisheries management in Australia's Federal fisheries has recently undergone significant change. The biological status of many resources is deteriorating, with a tendency to move from being classified as "uncertain" to "overfished", and in some cases "overfishing" occurring (McLoughlin, 2005). Here, overfished refers to a stock biomass less than a limit biomass and overfishing to exploitation rates higher than a limit fishing mortality. Some, but not all, of these changes can be attributed to improved information and assessment leading to greater certainty about stock status. In addition, broader information on the negative impacts of fishing on the marine environment and the need for these fisheries to be demonstrably ecologically sustainable under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act has also motivated management action.
Simultaneously, the fishing industry has experienced economic problems. Input costs (particularly fuel) increased steadily from 2002, and the Australian dollar strengthened relative to its trading partners over the same period. Therefore, the industry has become less competitive internationally, where most of its products are sold and the import of relatively inexpensive seafood to meet domestic demand is promoted. This combination of factors has reduced the profitability of many fleets, and in some cases, there is either no profit or the operation is being run at a loss (Galeano et al., 2006).
The prospect of having an unsustainable, unprofitable fishing industry was the antithesis of where government, industry, and the public wanted to be. Drastic changes to management were required, resulting in three major initiatives: a statutory Direction from the Minister for Fisheries to the Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA) to recover overfished stocks and to prevent future overfishing; a structural adjustment package to buy out excess effort from several fisheries; and the implementation of a network of marine protected areas in the southeast Australian EEZ. These three initiatives were publicly announced in November and December 2005 (http://www.deh.gov.au and http://www.daff.gov.au).
Here, I discuss one key aspect of the statutory Direction, the development of a harvest strategy policy (HSP). First, however, a brief description of the background to the Federal government's fisheries management system and AFMA's performance is given.
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Background |
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TopIntroductionBackgroundWhy was a HSP...Development of the draft...Other implementation issuesConclusionReferences |
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AFMA was established in 1991 under the Fisheries Administration Act (FAA) to manage the fishery resources under jurisdiction of the Australian government in accordance with the Fisheries Management Act (FMA). The FMA formulates several objectives that give priority to ecological and economic considerations. The Board of Directors of AFMA is responsible for making management decisions consistent with the FMA and reports directly to the responsible Minister. The Board established Management Advisory Committees (MACs) and Resource Assessment Groups (RAGs) for each of its fisheries to provide management and scientific advice, respectively, and co-opted members from management agencies, the industry, the science community, and conservation groups. Many of these have been in existence for more than 10 y and are widely regarded as an enduring and successful means by which stakeholders can participate in fisheries management (Smith et al., 1999, 2001).
AFMA is responsible for fisheries management and all operational aspects, whereas broad fisheries policy settings are the responsibility of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Forestry (DAFF). The Department of Environment and Heritage is responsible for conservation (including threatened- and endangered-species legislation) and evaluates the ecological sustainability of fisheries under the EPBC Act.
For much of the 1990s, AFMA performed well in pursuing most, if not all, of its objectives. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, some major initiatives were taken. For example, all fisheries were certified (albeit with conditions) under EPBC, and ecological risk assessments commenced. However, AFMA was generally slow to adapt to changing government and stakeholder demands. Consequently, government and industry lost confidence in the Board's ability to manage fisheries successfully, eventually leading to a change in membership and a substantial shift in direction. Driven by the new Board, consultation and advice were improved by a Board member attending every MAC meeting and a wider range of participants being involved in decision-making. However, a solution to the problems of overfished stocks and poor economic performance of the industry was still lacking.
During 2004 and 2005, considerable work was undertaken by the industry, AFMA, and the government to guide the future of fisheries. One initiative of particular relevance was a harvest strategy framework that was introduced successfully into one of the country's most complex fisheries, the Southern and Eastern Scalefish and Shark Fishery (SESSF) (Smith et al., 2001, 2007).
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Why was a HSP needed? |
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TopIntroductionBackgroundWhy was a HSP...Development of the draft...Other implementation issuesConclusionReferences |
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Throughout the 1990s and up to 2005, AFMA had managed fisheries in accordance with its legislative objectives. However, these objectives were broad and did not provide adequate guidance about the government's expectations in terms of what it wanted management to achieve, creating real problems. Many decisions resulted from negotiations that had ill-defined boundaries, resulting in a range of possible outcomes. The lack of government policy placed managers and scientists in a weak position, sometimes resulting in disputes with stakeholders and often leading to short-term socio-economic considerations dominating decision-making. This contributed to the decline in fish stocks and the low resilience within the industry when economic conditions worsened, because they were always "fishing on the edge".
As defined in the HSP, a harvest strategy sets out the management actions necessary to achieve defined biological and economic objectives in a given fishery. Harvest strategies consist of three elements: monitoring, stock assessment, and control rules. Control rules specify the management actions to be taken in response to assessment information about the current (economic and biological) status of the stock. Monitoring and stock assessment are commonly undertaken, but the use of control rules is more recent. The absence of clear links between the assessment and management response was a major contributor to the problems faced by AFMA.
A further key reason that the HSP was required came from ongoing disagreement among government agencies, industry, and conservation groups about reference points. Indicators and reference points were adopted in a number of fisheries, but there was no consistency among fisheries or an agreed policy that gave guidance on what these should be. Consequently, depending on which reference point was favoured (e.g. Blim might be set at 20% or 30% of unexploited biomass, B0, whereas the actual biomass was, say, 25% of B0), a stock could be classified as either "overfished" or "fully fished". A growing number of "red cards" issued by DAFF's science policy arm (reporting on AFMA's management of Commonwealth fish stocks) did not generate public confidence in either AFMA or the industry.
It was against this background that the Minister for Fisheries issued a Direction (an expression of government policy as well as a statutory instrument that AFMA must comply with to the extent that it is consistent with the objectives of the FMA) under the FAA (s. 91). The first-ever Direction received by AFMA in December 2005 required that all necessary steps be taken to prevent future overfishing, to recover overfished stocks, and to manage the broader impacts of fishing on the marine environment (http://www.daff.gov.au). The Direction also set out an interim HSP based on biomass reference points (Blim = 0.2B0; Btarg = 0.4B0). In providing these constraints, the government placed clear boundaries around the risks it was willing to accept in resource utilization.
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Development of the draft HSP |
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TopIntroductionBackgroundWhy was a HSP...Development of the draft...Other implementation issuesConclusionReferences |
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The first national HSP draws strongly on experience from other parts of the world, particularly North America. However, it was the success of the harvest strategy framework implemented in the SESSF that convinced the AFMA Board that a broader HSP was feasible. The role of scientists in the SESSF was pivotal, because of their scientific input and also because of the trust and confidence they gained from other stakeholders in building a harvest strategy system that worked. The MAC and RAG processes established for this fishery more than a decade before had provided a forum in which all stakeholders could participate (Grieve and Richardson, 2001), and the direct link between the MAC and the Board raised Board awareness and confidence in the outcomes.
The draft HSP was developed between January and June 2006. The process was led by DAFF, but its content relied heavily on the scientific and management agencies. The timeline was tight and permitted only limited consultation, which remains a concern of some stakeholders even today. Key elements of the draft HSP are:
- limit and target reference points (Blim, Btarg, Flim, Ftarg) for biomass and fishing mortality;
- Btarg
BMEY (biomass corresponding to maximum economic yield); if BMEY is unknown, a proxy of Btarg = 1.2BMSY is to be used;
- a default value for BMSY = 0.4B0;
- Blim 0.5BMSY (or a proxy);
- Flim
FMSY;
- the fishery is maintained at, or returned to, Btarg, and a <10% chance of the biomass falling below Blim within a time period equal to the mean generation time of the species being fished;
- progressive reduction of exploitation rate when a stock moves below Btarg and the closer it moves towards Blim;
- if a stock is expected to decline below Blim with a probability >50%, then target fishing must cease;
- at stock sizes below Blim, additional measures must be implemented, a rebuilding plan developed, and the stock listed as "conservation dependent" under environmental law;
- proxies for quantitative reference points may be used if the available information does not allow their calculation directly.
The explicit linking of fisheries management reference points and environmental law is an important development, because it clarifies where environmental law will intervene and, if necessary, prevail. The issue of the appropriateness of the criteria currently used for listing of a species under the EPBC Act is currently under discussion.
The draft HSP also:
- advocates a tiered approach to setting control rules to cater for different levels of certainty (or knowledge) about a stock; importantly, the same level of risk is maintained across tiers with the implication that greater uncertainty results in more conservative management;
- considers multispecies fisheries with economic trade-offs, but the primary goal is to maintain all species above Blim;
- focuses initially on target and by-product species, with a reliance on ecological risk assessment and complementary management processes to deal with bycatch and broader ecosystem impact issues;
- promotes the use of management strategy evaluation (MSE) as a formal tool for evaluating management options;
- takes all sources of mortality into account (e.g. discards and catches taken by other jurisdictions);
- ensures the development of implementation guidelines to assist stakeholders in applying the policy over a wide range of fisheries (squid through to orange roughy).
A further area for development is improved specification of economic indicators and reference points. AFMA is leading this process with input from DAFF, the Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics, the Australian National University, and industry.
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Other implementation issues |
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TopIntroductionBackgroundWhy was a HSP...Development of the draft...Other implementation issuesConclusionReferences |
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Several fish stocks may be already below the default limit reference point, and many others may be below the default target. In response, the AFMA Board has announced total allowable catch (TAC) reductions for 2006 and foreshadowed further reductions in 2007. Rebuilding strategies will be required for a number of stocks.
With the completion of the draft HSP and the development of implementation guidelines, each MAC and RAG developed harvest strategies by species or stock for consideration by the AFMA Board by the end of 2006. This was an ambitious timetable, but the capacity and willingness of the MACs and RAGs to take the lead was encouraging. AFMA provided the financial support to assist this process.
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Conclusion |
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TopIntroductionBackgroundWhy was a HSP...Development of the draft...Other implementation issuesConclusionReferences |
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Although Australia has adopted ecosystem-based fishery management as a policy goal, it is the statutory Direction from the Minister for Fisheries to AFMA that is rapidly changing the seascape for Australian fisheries. Its centrepiece is the creation of a HSP that establishes the boundaries for future decision-making on catch levels, by specifying default limit and target reference points. This public articulation of acceptable risk by government in the use of public resources at a national level has filled the gap between broad legislative objectives and fishery-specific management arrangements.
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References |
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TopIntroductionBackgroundWhy was a HSP...Development of the draft...Other implementation issuesConclusionReferences |
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Galeano D., Vieira S., Shafron W., Newton P. Australian Fisheries Surveys Report 2005. (2006) August. Canberra. ABARE Report.
Grieve C., Richardson G. R. Recent history of Australia's South East fishery: a manager's perspective. Marine and Freshwater Research (2001) 52:377–386.[CrossRef][Web of Science]
McLoughlin K. Fishery Status Report 2004. In: Bureau of Rural Sciences (2005) Canberra.
Smith A. D. M., Fulton E. J., Hobday A. J., Smith D. C., Shoulder P. Scientific tools to support the practical implementation of ecosystem-based fisheries management. ICES Journal of Marine Science (2007) 64:633–639.
Smith A. D. M., Sainsbury K. J., Stevens R. A. Implementing effective fisheries-management systems—management strategy evaluation and the Australian partnership approach. ICES Journal of Marine Science (1999) 56:967–979.
Smith D. C., Smith A. D. M., Punt A. E. Approach and process for stock assessment in the South East Fishery, Australia: a perspective. Marine and Freshwater Research (2001) 52:671–681.[CrossRef][Web of Science]
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