2016 SoE Marine Chapter - Pressures - Commercial fishing

Brief description

The Marine chapter of the 2016 State of the Environment (SoE) report incorporates multiple expert templates developed from streams of marine data. This metadata record describes the Expert Assessment "Pressures on the marine environment associated with commercial fishing". The full Expert Assessment, including figures and tables (where provided), is attached to this record. Where available, the Data Stream(s) used to generate this Expert Assessment are accessible through the "On-line Resources" section of this record.

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DESCRIPTION OF THE PRESSURE
Australia’s wild-caught marine fisheries are highly diverse and contribute significantly to the economy. These fisheries catch scallops, prawns, crabs, squid, coastal fish such as whiting and flathead, reef fish such as coral trout, shelf and deepwater fish such as ling and blue-eye trevally, and oceanic tuna and billfish Although fisheries operate across all states and the Northern Territory and out to the limit of the Australian EEZ, fishing effort is not evenly distributed across Australian marine waters with the majority of fishing effort occurring in the North, Temperate East, South-East, and South-West Marine Regions. The impact of fisheries on the marine environment also varies with differing gears having differing impacts on species that might be caught as bycatch, and the habitats where fishing takes place. Methods used to capture those species are highly varied ranging from small-scale netting to large-scale pelagic long-line fishing and trawling (Flood et al. 2014). There is currently extensive effort occurring the Coral Sea bioregion using pelagic long – line gear. There have been extensive reductions in the footprint of the trawl fishery in the South West, South East and Temperate Eastern Bioregions. There is also an extensive trawl fishery in the North Bioregion, associated with the Northern Prawn Fishery, which remains relatively constant through time.

DATA STREAM(S) USED IN EXPERT ASSESSMENT
The metadata record for the fisheries data can be found at http://www.marlin.csiro.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/search?uuid=aa53a4df-7fe6-46d1-93b7-2d3732f4883e.

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2016 SOE ASSESSMENT SUMMARY [see attached Expert Assessment for full details]

• 2016 •
Assessment grade: Low-High
Assessment trend: Improving
Confidence grade: Adequate high quality evidence and high level of consensus
Confidence trend: Adequate high quality evidence and high level of consensus
Comparability: Grade and trend are not comparable to the 2011 assessment
• 2011 •
Assessment grade: Not directly comparable
Assessment trend: Not directly comparable
Confidence grade: Not directly comparable
Confidence trend: Not directly comparable

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CHANGES SINCE 2011 SOE ASSESSMENT
Commercial fishing was separated from recreational fishing and traditional use of resources.

Lineage

Statement: QUALITY OF DATA USED IN THE ASSESSMENT
As good as fisheries data can be.

Notes

Purpose
To describe the pressures on the marine environment associated with commercial fishing for use in the Marine chapter of the 2016 State of the Environment report.