The National Fisheries Plan

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Consultation has concluded

In 2019, the Australian Government committed to develop Australia’s first National Fisheries Plan, working with commercial, recreational, Indigenous and aquaculture fisheries. The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry is now working with state and territory fisheries agencies and stakeholders to deliver this commitment.

The National Fisheries Plan is out now.

Your contribution to the Plan

In 2021, we invited feedback on the Outline for consultation: National Fisheries Plan from commercial, recreational and Indigenous fishers; fisheries managers and policy makers; seafood consumers; environmental non-government organisations; and interested members of the Australian public.

Read how your feedback was used to develop the National Fisheries Plan, a shared vision for Australia’s fishing and seafood community.

For further enquiries, email fisheries.policies@aff.gov.au.

In 2019, the Australian Government committed to develop Australia’s first National Fisheries Plan, working with commercial, recreational, Indigenous and aquaculture fisheries. The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry is now working with state and territory fisheries agencies and stakeholders to deliver this commitment.

The National Fisheries Plan is out now.

Your contribution to the Plan

In 2021, we invited feedback on the Outline for consultation: National Fisheries Plan from commercial, recreational and Indigenous fishers; fisheries managers and policy makers; seafood consumers; environmental non-government organisations; and interested members of the Australian public.

Read how your feedback was used to develop the National Fisheries Plan, a shared vision for Australia’s fishing and seafood community.

For further enquiries, email fisheries.policies@aff.gov.au.

Consultation has concluded
  • Your feedback

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    Read how your feedback was used to develop the National Fisheries Plan, a shared vision for Australia’s fishing and seafood community.

    Vision

    What you told us

    • General support for the vision.
    • The importance of healthy fish stocks and ecosystems could be reflected more strongly.
    • Recreational fishing aspirations for growth and development through fishing experiences must be reflected.

    How we addressed your feedback

    • Amended the vision to increase the focus on sustainable aquatic ecosystems now and into the future.
    • Incorporated a new priority area on recreational fishing that focuses on development through fishing experiences.

    Scope

    What you told us

    • Concerns about exclusion of marine spatial planning and recognition of other marine users (e.g. offshore developments).
    • Climate change needs to feature more prominently in the plan
    • A greater focus is needed on the social and economic development of inland fisheries, recreational fisheries and aquaculture.
    • The general public should be included as consumers of seafood.

    How we addressed your feedback

    • Marine spatial planning and other users remain out of scope, but the plan recognises blue economy work being done under the High Level Panel and other initiatives.
    • Increased focus on climate change in the adaptation section.
    • Included aquaculture in “fishing and seafood community” references and added a “Sustainability” initiative on aquaculture growth and development.
    • Extended references to fishing, aquaculture and seafood community to research organisations and general public.

    Governance

    What you told us

    • General support for streamlining and harmonising the regulatory and reporting environment, including reviewing OCS arrangements.
    • Further focus needed to streamline fisheries and aquaculture development approvals under the EBPC Act.
    • Co-management opportunities should be considered.

    How we addressed your feedback

    • Amended text to ensure streamlining and harmonising are reflected consistently throughout this section.
    • Incorporated focus on implementing the Guidelines for the Ecologically Sustainable Management of Fisheries – 2nd Edition, where relevant, in “Sustainability” section.
    • Initiative included to facilitate co-management where appropriate, noting co-management also addressed under “Community connection”.

    Sustainability

    What you told us

    • Focus on increasing productivity should instead recognise benefits from sustainable fishing and aquaculture.
    • Data collection, monitoring and research needs to be prioritised.
    • Further focus required on enabling the growth and development of aquaculture and minimising biosecurity threats.
    • Ensure harvest strategies incorporate Indigenous values
    • Enhancement of inland fisheries, including recreational fishing access and adaptive stocking strategies.

    How we addressed your feedback

    • Amended focus from ‘maximising productivity’ to ‘maximising benefits while ensuring healthy aquatic ecosystems’.
    • Included initiative to prioritise and share outcomes from data collection, monitoring and research.
    • Included initiative on aquaculture development and added references to biosecurity initiatives under the Agricultural innovation agenda.
    • Incorporated inland fishery enhancement initiative in new recreational fishing section.

    Resource sharing and access security

    What you told us

    • Identified as the most important priority area.
    • Clear recognition of the importance of secure access to fishing and aquaculture resources.
    • Seeking development of clear re-allocation and structural adjustment/compensation mechanisms, noting changing demographics and expectations.
    • Developing a national access rights framework will be challenging given government legislative and legacy constraints.

    How we addressed your feedback

    • Strengthened focus to establish clear and secure access and allocation arrangements and to recognise that access security promotes business certainty, innovation, investment and stewardship.
    • Removal of subjective terms such as fair and best practice.
    • Noted that that jurisdictions operate within their own legislative and policy framework, priorities and resourcing constraints.

    Indigenous opportunity

    What you told us

    • General support for increased Indigenous participation.
    • Targets should be more aspirational to celebrate Indigenous participation and ensure customary rights and values are recognised.
    • Aim to secure funding for Indigenous Sea Country Rangers.
    • Effective engagement and communication is important.
    • An Indigenous fisheries representative body should be investigated.

    How we addressed your feedback

    • Amended the targets to acknowledge, support and celebrate Indigenous participation from all ages and genders in fishing and aquaculture and to recognise customary rights, obligations and values.
    • Included initiative to support Indigenous Ranger programs.
    • Strengthened initiatives to increase Indigenous participation on boards, and consider establishing an Indigenous representative body.
    • Maintained focus on inclusive and culturally aware workforces and enabling effective two-way communication.

    Adaptation

    What you told us

    • Climate change will significantly impact fishing and aquaculture and this threat should be expanded and emphasised.
    • Ensure healthy aquatic ecosystems are at the forefront while supporting industry adaptation.
    • Economic targets are inconsistent with intent of this priority.
    • Data collection and reporting on risks should be reflected.
    • Linkages with recently announced climate adaptation initiatives to be considered.

    How we addressed your feedback

    • Emphasised the expected climate change affects on fishing and aquaculture.
    • Amended target on increasing growth to balance with maintaining aquatic ecosystem health.
    • Removed targets related to commercial and recreational fishing expenditure.
    • Updated data collection initiative to focus on changing risk profiles.
    • Included references to climate risk initiatives under the Agricultural innovation agenda.

    Employment, participation and health

    What you told us

    • General support for increasing participation and employment.
    • Increase focus on engagement and participation in each sector of the fishing and aquaculture community, not just commercial.
    • Job satisfaction should be considered.
    • Baseline data is required to measure employment against.

    How we addressed your feedback

    • Incorporated references to each sector and/or the ‘fishing, aquaculture and seafood community’ as relevant and moving recreational specific target to the new recreational fishing section.
    • Updating targets to refer to increased quality of jobs and people satisfaction in their roles.
    • Included initiative to support collection and reporting of baseline employment estimates.

    Community connection

    What you told us

    • Trust is vital to increasing connection with the community, and between sectors, managers and researchers.
    • This requires increased transparency in reporting fishery and ecosystem impacts, investment into research, promoting the fishing and aquaculture’s positive contributions and strongly promoting Australia as the first choice producer of high quality, fresh seafood both domestically and internationally.
    • Important for jurisdictions to remove barriers to achieve this.

    How we addressed your feedback

    • Broadened targets from a domestic commercial focus to reflect Australia as trusted domestically and internationally for high quality, sustainable seafood products and range of benefits.
    • Included initiatives on increasing transparency through sharing and publishing fisheries data and building consistent approach to communicating contribution of all sectors and reflect increased supply chain efficiency.

    International engagement

    What you told us

    • A ‘level playing field’ is highly important and stronger controls are needed to ensure imported seafood is legally and sustainably produced.
    • Better inter-jurisdictional cooperation is required to meet international obligations.
    • Should reflect opportunities to engage with First Nations people across the world, drive international fishing tourism and cooperate to implement High Level Panel targets and Sustainable Development Goals.

    How we addressed your feedback

    • Incorporated initiative regarding enhancing traceability of seafood products in line with the National Traceability Framework.
    • Initiatives regarding international engagement with First Nations people and international fishing tourism reflected in indigenous opportunity and recreational fishing sections respectively.

    Implementation and reporting

    What you told us

    • Responsible parties and timeframes should be further defined, and resources identified, to achieve targets.
    • A national fisheries governance forum should be established, with representation from all sectors and jurisdictions to execute and monitor implementation of the Plan.

    How we addressed your feedback

    • A process will be established for jurisdictions to work together with national industry representatives from Seafood Industry Australia, Indigenous and recreational bodies to create an implementation framework to guide the plan’s execution to achieve its targets.