Summary

For most people the ocean is a mirror – a reflection of the sky. Most people do not rely on it for day-to-day needs nor eat as much seafood as they should. Others see the ocean as a vehicle for recreation. But within the sea is an immense biodiversity that is valuable commercially, recreationally and for its contribution to ecological balance.

Managing this oceanic biodiversity presents fisheries managers throughout the world with common dilemmas. The world’s fisheries are under increasing pressure from harvest by commercial, recreational, traditional, illegal and unregulated fishing. Increasing coastal populations want to enjoy access to these resources but coastal development is destroying nursery grounds and other important fish habitats. Urban and industrial pollution goes into our waterways and oceans, at best modifying ecological communities, at worst destroying them. Unscrupulous sectors of the industry operating both legally and illegally are targeting remote and high seas stocks – often with the blessing of their flag jurisdictions.

In an environment of significant uncertainty and with a paucity of meaningful data, the world is allowing fisheries resources to be placed under incredible pressure – we are fishing down food webs, and they simply cannot sustain it. Identifying who owns the fish is an important first step in the fisheries management process but it makes little difference if these owners are ambivalent to, or unaware of, the consequences of unconstrained impacts. Which in most cases they are. It is naive to imagine that creating awareness of issues amongst owners will somehow result in necessary changes to the management of the things they own. In many cases we see poorly resourced bureaucracies moving clumsily between agendas in reaction to the latest reactive campaign, lacking strategic foci on the highest priority issues.

However, it is not all bad. There are some places in the world where systematic strategic direction has been blended successfully with opportunism to deliver outcomes that address at least some of these concerns. This paper describes the processes that one jurisdiction followed in an attempt to strike an appropriate balance between conservation and exploitation. The paper reflects on political opportunity, examines the relative costs and benefits and places the work being done at a localised level within a broader geographic context.

Modern fisheries management needs to be administered under modern legislation that provides a structured hierarchy of objectives embracing ecologically sustainable development, and places conservation ahead of exploitation. The approach requires overarching framework that allows issues to be managed in a proactive and timely way as they emerge. The case studies in this paper come from Australia where, unconstrained by much of the historical baggage of Europe and North America, jurisdictions determinedly set about rights-based fishery management in the 1980’s. Most significant fisheries in Australia are limited access and strictly regulated, either through transferable quotas, or clear controls on fishing effort. By the early 1990’s and concurrent with the trend towards limited access, rights-based management, debate was raging about the ecologically sustainable management of harvest sectors, the establishment of marine protected areas, controlling aquatic pests, the protection of threatened species, and resolving aquatic habitat protection issues.

This paper presents a chronology of case studies based primarily around New South Wales, Australia. Following a description of the history of the legislative base in NSW, the case-studies presented cover each of the above issues. Included are specific examples of fisheries adjustment and their drivers, an approach to the progressive introduction of marine protected areas and recommendations about the lessons learnt which may be incorporated into any jurisdiction.