- Northern Prawn Fishery
- Bycatch and discarding workplan
January2012– January2014
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Background
Fishery Snapshot
Summary of bycatch in the NPF
Ecological Risk Assessment Process
ERA Level 2 Results
ERA Level 2 Residual Risk Results
ERA Level 2.5 and Level 3 SAFE Results
Priority Species identified through the ERA Process
TEP Species
Changes to Management
Fishing Effort
Temporal and Spatial Closures
Status of Monitoring
Monitoring Programs
Research Projects
Discarding in the NPF
Bycatch Reduction Workplan
Key Objectives
NORMAC Summary
References
Bycatch Workplan
Appendix A. Key Management Actions and ERA outcomes.
Appendix B. Priority Species
Background
Bycatch is described by the Commonwealth as “the part of the catch which is returned to the sea either because it has no commercial value or because regulations preclude it being retained, and the part of the catch that does not reach the deck of the fishing vessel but is affected by interactions with the fishing gear.”
This bycatch workplan is the second iteration of its kind and supersedes previous Bycatch Action Plans (BAP) in the Northern Prawn Fishery (NPF). This workplan will detail a program of actions to address priority bycatch issues in accordance with legislative and policy responsibilities.
It is Government policy to minimise bycatch in all commercial fisheries. The NPF continues to develop long-term strategies for overall minimisation of bycatch. However, the focus of this NPF workplan will be on developing management responses to high ecological risks over the two year life of this document and measures to avoid fishery interactions with species listed under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act). Discarding of target species will be broadly approached through monitoring discarding rates as a critical input to stock assessment and harvest strategies.
This workplan should be read in conjunction with the Commonwealth Bycatch Policy and AFMA’s Program for Addressing Bycatch and Discarding in Commonwealth Fisheries – An Implementation Strategy which is available on AFMAs website at
The aims of this Workplan are to develop strategies that will:
- Respond to high ecological risks assessed through AFMA’s Ecological Risk Assessment for the Effect of Fishing (ERAEF) and other assessment processes;
- Avoid interactions with species listed under the EPBC Act;
- Reduce discarding of target species to as close to zero as practically possible; and
- Minimise overall bycatch in the Fishery over the long-term.
Fishery Snapshot
The NPF is located off Australia’s northern coast, extending from Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, in the east to CapeLondonderry in Western Australia. The Fishery covers approximately 771,000 square kilometres of the Australian Fishing Zone. The Fishery is managed by the Commonwealth through the Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA) under Offshore Constitutional Settlement (OCS) arrangements with Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australian governments and the Northern Prawn Fishery Management Plan 1995.
The NPF is currently managed through a series of input controls, including limited entry to the Fishery, gear restrictions, bycatch restrictions and system of seasonal, spatial and temporal closures. Banana andTiger Prawns are the main species targeted in the Fishery with a series of other prawns having commercial importance including Endeavour Prawns. Fishing vessels are permitted to use twin, quad, triple and twin-tongue net configurations; however a majority use either twin or quad gear. The commercial catch is also made up ofby-product speciesincludingScampi, Bugs, Scallops and Squid.
In line with the 2005 Ministerial Direction, the AFMA Commission has advised the NPF industry that the Fishery will move to Individual Transferable Quota (ITQ) management in early 2013. A full cost benefits analysis (CBA) of management scenarios in the NPF was undertaken in 2009 and recommended that the Fishery move to quota on the three main target species (Tiger Prawns, Banana Prawns and Red-legged Banana Prawns). The move to ITQ management will optimise an increase in net economic returns to the Australian community from the Fishery, cost-effective management of the Fishery and contribute to the ecologically sustainable development of the Fishery.
In January 2009, AFMA and NPF Industry Pty Ltd (NPFI) entered into a contractual arrangement and Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to facilitate a co-management trial as part of a three year co-management project. The trial was aimed at providing industry bodies with a greater role in advising AFMA on operational and commercial matters in the Fishery with Northern Prawn Fishery Management Advisory Committee (NORMAC)playing a more strategic role in the Fishery. The trial in the NPF has now come to a close and AFMA and NPFI are working closely on continuing co-management as a permanent component of the management arrangements in the NPF.
The NPF was one of Australia’s first fisheries to explicitly focus on bycatch research and minimisation. Currently the Fishery is pursuing accreditation from the Marine Stewardship Council to demonstrate the high standards maintained with respect to sustainability. In order to achieve this high standard the Fishery will need to display the work that it conducts to reduce bycatch and continue to maintain this.
Summary of bycatch in the NPF
The NPF has been at the forefront of Australia’s fisheries in assessing and demonstrating that it can be an ecologically sustainable Fishery (Alverson 1994; Brewer et. al. 2006). NORMAC has traditionally taken a strategic position on addressing bycatch and other ecological issues in the NPF, including the establishment of a bycatch sub-committee to provide it with specialist advice on the development of strategies to reduce bycatch. NORMAC developed the first Commonwealth BAP throughout 1997/98, preceding the implementation of the Commonwealth Bycatch Policy.
With prawn trawling recognised as one of the least selective forms of fishing, the NPF has been proactive in responding to environmental issues and has employed a program of continuous improvement in bycatch reduction.Previous monitoring and research shows that the NPF catches and/or interacts with a range of marine animals which include six species of sea turtles, more then twelve species of protected sea snakes, about 50 species of sharks, rays and sawfish, and hundreds of species of teleost fish and epibenthic invertebrates. Survival rates of fish after capture are thought to be low but for many invertebrates (e.g. crustaceans) they are high.
Bycatch composition varies in the NPF depending on area and time of day, Stobutzki et al. (2000) indicated that bycatch composition can be broadly grouped into two different regions in the Fishery – a northern group (broadly north of 14ºS) and a southern group (broadly south of 14ºS). Significant progress has been made, most prominently since 1998 when the first BAP was implemented.
Appendix A highlights some key management actions that have reduced bycatch in the Fishery since 1996. Apart from the actions in Appendix A, additional actions have ensured that the NPF has very few ecological risks, including closures of critical habitat and seasonal closures. The development and undertaking of ecological risk assessments (ERAs) will ensure targeted measures can be developed to address remaining ecological risks in the NPF. Several million dollars have been invested in bycatch reduction and have resulted in the development of Turtle Excluder Devices (TEDs) and Bycatch Reduction Devices (BRDs), which the NPF industry has refined and improved over recent years.
Ecological Risk Assessment Process
To assess the impacts of fishing on all parts of the marine environment including the sustainability risks of target, by-product, bycatch and Threatened, Endangered and Protected (TEP) species, AFMA with NORMAC has supported the development of the ERA processes. This work has been undertaken to ensure the NPF is able to respond by managing impacts on species that are likely to be at risk from the Fishery, including avoiding the capture of TEP species where possible. The ERA processhas helped to prioritise research, data collection, monitoring needs and management actions for fisheries and ensure that they are managed both sustainably and efficiently. Outcomes of the ERA process for the NPF are summarised below.
ERA Level 2 Results
The Level 2 ERA examines ecological units such as individual species, habitats or communities. The assessment examines each unit based on two factors known as productivity and susceptibility. Productivity is the ability of a unit or species to recover from anthropogenic impacts, based on factors such as longevity and fecundity. Susceptibility is the likelihood of that unit/species being affected by the activity based on factors such as habitat and depth overlap.There were 272 species assessed at Level 2 using the PSA analysis.
In the Tiger Prawn sub-fishery, 25 were assessed to be at high risk, including 16 by-product species, and nineTEP species. By taxa, the high risk species comprised eightinvertebrates, eightteleosts, fivechondrichthyans (sharks and rays), and fourmarine reptiles.
In the Banana Prawn sub-fishery, 27 species were assessed to be at high risk, including 15 by-product species, and 12 TEP species. By taxa, the high risk species comprised eightteleosts, seveninvertebrates, sevenmarine reptiles, and fivechondrichthyans (sharks and rays).
ERA Level 2 Residual Risk Results
Due to the semi-quantitative nature of the Level 2 risk assessment, the analysis did not take into account all management measures currently in place in fisheries, resulting in a potential over-estimate of the actual risk for some species. To take account of this constraint, the residual risk of the 28 high risk species was quantified using guidelines developed by AFMA, CSIRO and stakeholders. Residual risk is broadly defined as the risk remaining after the implementation of mitigation measures.
Following residual risk assessment there was a change from 28 high risk species to 26 high residual risk species. These included 14 bycatch/by-product and 12 TEP species including five Sawfish and sevenSeasnake species. The reduction in risk for two cuttlefish species was made under Guideline 2 which allowed the reduction in risk if missing data points could be “borrowed” from a closely related species.
ERA Level 2.5 and Level 3 SAFE Results
Sustainability Assessment for Fishing Effects (SAFE) is a quantitative assessment carried out on bycatch species. A Level 2.5 assessment (Brewer et al. 2006a) has been completed which reduced the risk level of eightinvertebrate and fiveSawfish species and identified twoteleost species and threeelasmobranch species as ‘At Risk’. A Level 3 SAFE assessment (Milton et al. 2008) has been completed for 14 species of Seasnakes incidentally caught in the NPF.This assessment reduced the risk level of the sevenSeasnake species assessed in the Level 2 assessment.
The SAFE assessment for the Tiger Prawn sub-fishery was re-run in late 2010, with the report finalised in early 2011. This assessment included 51 elasmobranch species and 428 teleost species. Five species of elasmobranch were estimated to have a high risk rating from the assessment. However, due to other biological factors and the wide distribution of the five species of elasmobranch they were not included in the priority list of species from the ERA process.
Priority Species identified through the ERA Process
The outputof the risk assessment process is a priority list identifying the key ecological areas in the Fishery that require management attention. The culmination of all fourlevels of assessment (SICA, PSA, Residual Risk and SAFE) is a list of threespecies that have been identified as ‘At risk’ through the ERA process (Appendix B). A number of reports have been completed for the ERA process and can be found on the AFMA website( AFMA has alsoproducedthe second iteration of an Ecological Risk Management (ERM) report which describes the ERA process to date and proposes management strategies to work on the high priority species from the ERA process. The ERM and ERA reports have been considered by NORMAC and the Northern Prawn Resource Assessment Group (NPRAG).
TEP Species
It is a legislative requirement that Fishery interactions with species listed under the EPBC Act be avoided. In this context the approach for addressing interactions with TEP species in the NPF is to develop measures to mitigate known interactionsregardless of their assessed level of risk.
The NPF interacts with several groups of TEP species including sea snakes,turtles, syngnathidsand,to a limited extent, marine mammals. Turtle mitigation has been successfully addressed with the introduction of the mandatory use of TEDs in 2000. For example, TEDs have shown to be effective in the Fishery with a 97% reduction in turtle bycatch (Brewer et al. 2006b).Additional benefits include a reduction in the capture of large sharks and rays by 86% and 94% respectively, including a reduction in the capture of narrow sawfish by 93.3% (Brewer et al. 2006). Development of TEDs and additional mitigation measures will continue to pursue minimal interactions with marine turtles and other TEP species.
BRDs have also been mandated into the Fishery mainlyaimed at reducing fish volume bycatch. A BRD know as the Popeye Fishbox BRDwas legislated as an approved device in the NPFhas shown significant reductions in the capture of seasnakesin nets (Raudzens 2007). There are seven BRDs permitted for use in the NPF, and there is continual development and refinement of these devices.
Changes to Management
The NPF is moving to output based ITQ management in early 2013, in time for the 2013Banana Prawn fishing season. This move is in line with the Ministerial Direction delivered to AFMA in 2005 which outlined that the longstanding Australian Government position to manage all Commonwealth fisheries through output controls should be implemented, unless there is a strong case that can be made, on a fishery by fishery basis, that this would not be cost effective or would be otherwise detrimental. In 2008 NORMAC initiated a CBA on management options for the NPF to determine the most cost effective and sustainable management regime for the NPF. The final conclusion of the CBA process was a recommendation to move the Fishery to output controls, and subsequently in August 2009 the AFMA Commission made the recommendation to implement output based management in the NPF.
In order to move to quota management a new management plan will be implemented for the NPF. This will cover off on all of the new requirements for the Fishery to move to quota based management. The main component of this will be the process of translating gear SFRs to quota SFRs and granting these new SFRs. When the current plan is revoked the SFRs currently in the Fishery will cease to exist. The grant of quota SFRs and boat SFRs will be a direct translation based on the number of gear SFRs and class B SFRs held on a certain date and subject to holders applying for the grant.
The translation will be one for one; that is for every gear SFR held one quota SFR for each of the quota species will be granted, and for every class B SFR held a single boat SFR will be granted under the new plan.
In line with AFMA’s Regulatory Reform process plans of management are being streamlined and simplified across fisheries. Currently there are similar rules across fisheries that are written in different versions, i.e. the requirement to have a Vessel Monitoring System. The Fisheries Management Act 1991 has been amended and some information in the 1995plan is now redundant and will not be included in the new plan.
Fishing Effort
The fishing effort in the NPF has changed dramatically since the discovery of prawns in the Gulf of Carpentariain the 1960’s. A restriction of the numbers of trawlers was put in place in 1977 which was the first input control in the Fishery. Vessel numbers peaked at 286 in 1981 but a combination of voluntary and compulsory reductions has reduced vessel numbers to 52 since 2007.An industry-funded voluntary buy back scheme was implemented in 1985 and culminated in a compulsory reduction of Class A units (based on under-deck hull volume and engine kilowatts) in 1993. A total of 149 boats were removed from the Fishery during this period.
The A unit system was replaced in 2000 with the current system of gear unit management which is based on controlling net headrope length in theFishery.Headrope length is more closely associated with effective fishing effort than the previous hull and engine units. Between 2000 and 2007, the total amount of headrope used in the Fisheryreduced by around 65%. During this time 38 boats exited the Fishery.
Effort in the Fishery has also decreased dramatically with the number of fishing days. In 1981 there were 43,419 boat days fished and in 2010 this was down to 8,044.
Since 2008, the AFMA Commission has agreed to three increases in the value of gear SFR’s in response to the NPRAG and NORMAC recommendations. The recommendations have been made in response to the outputs of the bioeconomic model for the NPF. The bioeconomic model has been run in 2008, 2010 and 2011 and has said on all occasions that to achieve Maximum Economic Yield for the Tiger Prawn fishery effort should be increased. In effect, this has resulted in both increases in the value of gear SFR’s and increases in the length of the Tiger Prawn season, allowing operators to target Tiger Prawns in what has historically been the Banana Prawn fishing season.