Torres Strait Tropical Rock Lobster Fishery. Credit: CSIRO
By Rich Bowden:
Australian marine scientists have attracted the world’s interest over a new environmental impact assessment for fisheries.
Researchers from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) have developed a method to assess the “ecological risk assessment” (ERA) of fisheries, a method which is being taken up the world over, according to a CSIRO news release.
The research team, led by Dr Tony Smith and Dr Alistair Hobday from CSIRO’s Wealth from Oceans Flagship in association with the Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA), developed the ERA which is now being applied to fisheries in the US, Canada, Ecuador, and the Western and Central Pacific, and by the international eco-labelling organisation the Marine Stewardship Council.
“AFMA needed a tool for assessing the ecological risk associated with a diverse range of fishing practices: from the hand-selection of rock lobsters in the Coral Sea, to the trawling of Patagonian Toothfish deep in the Southern Ocean,” Dr Smith said in the release.
“We met the challenge with a three-step method that considers targeted and incidentally caught species, as well as threatened, endangered and protected species. Ongoing research is further developing the method for habitats and ecological communities.”
“Each level of analysis potentially screens out issues of low concern and directs attention to higher risk issues. This helps fishery managers to guard against unacceptable changes to the ecosystem, while being strategic about where to focus dollars and time,” Dr Smith says.
‘Comprehensive assessment’
Co-researcher Dr Hobday said the ERA reports for more than 30 AFMA-managed fishing sectors had been painstakingly accumulated of a number of years.
“Our ERA reports document the most comprehensive assessment of the ecological impacts of fishing in Australia’s commercial fisheries and for any large set of fisheries in the world,” he says.
“More than 1200 species have been assessed, highlighting the diversity of Australian fisheries and pointing to risks requiring analysis and management, both for individual fisheries, and on a cumulative scale.”
The research has also yielded a database of information on more than 1000 species of mammals, seabirds, reptiles, scalefish, and sharks and rays, said the CSIRO.
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