2021 State of the Environment Report Marine Chapter – Expert Assessment – Pressure – Indigenous commercial fishing

Researchers: Emma Flukes (Point of contact) ,  Fischer, Mibu (Author) ,  Fischer, Mibu (Author) ,  Hunter, Cass (Author)

Brief description The Marine chapter of the 2021 State of the Environment (SoE) report incorporates multiple expert templates developed from streams of marine data. This metadata record describes the Expert Assessment "Pressure of Indigenous Commercial Fishing". ***A PDF of the full Expert Assessment, including figures and tables (where provided) is downloadable in the "On-line Resources" section of this record as "EXPERT ASSESSMENT 2021 - Pressure – Indigenous Commercial Fishing"*** ---------------------------------------- DESCRIPTION OF PRESSURE For the purposes of this assessment Indigenous commercial fishing relates to the participation of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Peoples in commercial fisheries for diverse purposes, including economic, social, cultural and environmental. Across the Australian context, Indigenous commercial fishing may often be interchangeable with cultural fisheries or Indigenous fisheries. Cultural fisheries, for example, can offer the discourse and branding of Indigenous wild-catch industry based upon ancient traditions (Lee, 2019). However, cultural commercial fisheries are not dependent on how ‘cultural’ an activity is, rather it is a recognition of the identity and variety of experiences that Indigenous fishers bring to their commercial activities (Smyth et al., 2018). Given the spread of commercial fisheries around Australia’s coastline, it could be assumed that the spread of Indigenous commercial fisheries is similarly reflected. As the population of Indigenous people in Australia is small, it could be assumed that the level of impact on fish stocks must be much lower than the non-indigenous component of commercial fisheries. DATA STREAM(S) USED IN EXPERT ASSESSMENT The information used in the assessment was based insightful statements from reports and articles on Australian Indigenous commercial fishing. ---------------------------------------- 2021 SOE ASSESSMENT SUMMARY [see attached Expert Assessment for full details] • 2021 • Assessment grade: Low impact Assessment trend: Unclear Confidence grade: Limited Confidence trend: Unclear Comparability: Not previously assessed • 2016 • N/A • 2011 • N/A ---------------------------------------- CHANGES SINCE 2016 SOE ASSESSMENT Not previously assessed.

Lineage Statement: QUALITY OF DATA USED IN THE ASSESSMENT The limited availability of public information on scale and level of Indigenous commercial fishing rates restricts the certainty of the assessment.

Lineage

Notes Credit
Peer reviews of this assessment were provided by: Stephan Schnierer (Southern Cross University) Emma Lee (Swinburne University)

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132.5390625,-27.333984375

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