Australian Fisheries Healthcheck

The Healthcheck comprises a framework, guidance document, and data compilation providing summary data to transparently, independently and comprehensively support reporting on a broad range of ecological, social, economic and governance issues relevant to Australian fisheries. These data can be used by a wide range of stakeholders to understand sustainability issues and reuse in other formats.

Phase 1 and 2 ran from 2015 to 2019, with final reports listed on the references page. Phase 3 commenced in 2023.

 

 

Healthcheck Phase 3

A continuation of Australian Fisheries Healthcheck has been funded by the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation (FRDC) and DAFF Ag Traceability Uplift – Responsible fisheries and aquaculture – Activating a comprehensive Ecological, Social, and Governance (ESG) reporting data system to uplift sustainability traceability. This two-year project ends June 2025.

Project aims are:

This has become an endorsed Ocean Decade project.

Overview – Phase 1 and Phase 2

There is growing appetite for reporting on commercial fishery indicators that are broader than stock status. Australian fisheries consider and respond to a range of issues beyond target species however, this is not widely recognised. This recognition is important for the seafood industry and for customers nationally and internationally. Consistent comparative treatment of Australia’s national and state fisheries is important and will also allow comparisons with international fisheries. Without proactive reporting on the health of our fisheries, third party reports will be the only source of information for Australian seafood. These third-party reports tend to consider only a limited range of issues and draw on a range of data that may not be the most up-to-date or representative for a fishery. The main output from the Healthcheck project was a reporting framework across a range of categories, application of the approach to a large number of case studies, and development of a cost-effective and enduring system for regular updating.

Main Result

A structure representing the areas important to understanding sustainability of fisheries was developed in the Healthcheck project. The structure covered four categories, relatively common to sustainability assessments, biological, economic, governance and social and ethical. The framework included a fifth category, as a range of external influences on the fishery can also affect fisheries sustainability (positively and negatively). Each of the five categories contains between four and six sub-categories, each represented by 2 indicators, for a total of 50 indicators. The indicators are available in the final report. Evolution of the Framework from Phase 1 to Phase 2 of the project showed the structure was flexible to inclusion of additional sub-categories and indicators, including those issues on the horizon.

Healthcheck structure – Phase 2

A set of Guidelines for gathering information for each indicator was developed and tested on 20 case study fisheries from each jurisdiction in Australia. This revealed that information was not equally available across indicators, or fisheries. Data were available for 81% of all indicators across the 20 fisheries. By category, data were available for 76% of Ecological indicators, 63% of Economic indicators, 98% of Governance indicators, 46% of Social and Ethical indicators, and 91% of External indicators. This pattern of missing information can help prioritise additional data preparation or collection efforts by fisheries and strategic research by agencies and other research providers.

Testing the Healthcheck

Fisheries from all Australian jurisdictions were included. The 20 fisheries are the Northern Prawn; Heard Island and McDonald Island; ETBF; SESSF Trawl; NSW Spanner Crab; NSW Ocean Haul; NT Mud Crab; NT Offshore Snapper; QLD Coral Reef Finfish; QLD Blue Swimmer Crab; SA Spencer Gulf Prawn; SA Lakes and Coorong – Pipi; SA Lakes and Coorong – Net; SA Turbo; TAS Abalone; TAS Scalefish; VIC Rock Lobster; VIC Scallop; WA Abalone; and WA Southern and West Coast Demersal Gillnet and Longline Fisheries. We examined the availability and quality of data for each of 50 indicators for each fishery. Details are in the final report.

Project fact sheets

Project updates were prepared and distributed to stakeholders during the course of the research and represent the activity of the time. While they were available for download, now that the project is complete, we have removed them from the website, and they are available in the final report.

Uptake

Who might use a Healthcheck? As part of the project, we interviewed a wide range of stakeholders (Hobday et al. 2018; Fleming et al. 2019). Example responses from stakeholder interviews are:

  • Fishery participants
    • ‘I believe that, as an Indigenous person working in fisheries, there’s not too many of us in Australia, and so I believe that my perspective is born of working with communities for a very long time, could actually help contribute to populating a healthcheck, to opening up lines of discussion, communication, to helping network and collaborate between Indigenous communities and others, so I would not only see myself as a user, but as an active participant in shaping those key areas out of the healthcheck.’
  • Policy-makers
    • ‘So if a state minister and state department doesn’t have the data but they’re making decisions about fisheries I wouldn’t be the only one who’d use it, I would have thought.
  • Consumers
    • ‘I’m not really interested in accessing the horrendous complexity of fishery management, and I don’t think most of the other people who want to eat Australian seafood are, either.’
  • Media
    • ‘Just having that really nice little picture of all the bits and pieces about a particular fishery is really useful.’
  • Managers
    • ‘In terms of making assessments …… on how fisheries are travelling and that, the more information I can get the better.’