Regulatory Framework

Aquarium fisheries on the Great Barrier Reef and in the vast and pristine Coral Sea are acknowledge as some the lowest impact sustainable fisheries anywhere in the world.

Australian aquarium supply fisheries are subject to a modern and comprehensive regulatory and management framework. All fisheries in Australia are managed by either state or federal government fisheries management agencies; and the science that underpins management is ongoing and subject to a continuous improvement model.

Australian Fisheries

Fisheries are managed in accordance with the principles of Ecologically Sustainable Development and to ensure equitable access to marine resources for the three main fishing sectors: commercial; recreational; and indigenous.

Commercial fisheries are "limited entry", which means that catching fish for sale is effectively banned, but there are a limited number of licenses that enable people to undertake the activity. In this way, fishery managers know who and what they are managing. If somebody wants to enter a fishery they have to buy an existing license at a price that is determined by normal market forces i.e. supply and demand. Entry costs are generally substantial, which ensures that participants are heavily invested in the environment that supports the industry.

There are 125 commercial fisheries in Australia, around 20 of which operate in the waters of the Great Barrier Reef and Coral Sea. These fisheries range from small developmental jellyfish fisheries through to the highly capitalised prawn and scallop trawl fisheries. The "cap and trade" system applies to all fisheries whether they are input (effort) or output (catch) controlled.

Cairns Marine Fisheries

Cairns Marine operates within three fully managed commercial fisheries:

• Marine Aquarium Fish Fishery and Coral Fishery managed by the Queensland government under the Fisheries Act (Qld) 1994 and Fisheries Regulations (Qld) 2008.
• Coral Sea Fishery managed by the federal government under the Fisheries Management Act (Cwlth) 1991 and Fisheries Management Regulations (Cwlth) 1992.

Marine Aquarium Fish Fishery

In the Marine Aquarium Fish Fishery and the Coral Sea Fishery, fish are hand collected. Typically, a diver will herd targeted fish into a fine mesh barrier net. The fish is then gently removed from the net by hand and placed into a collection container for transfer to the vessel. Barotrauma is addressed through graduated ascent. Divers typically use surface-supplied air from hookah apparatus, which gives extended time underwater and increased mobility.

Management includes limits on the number of boats (one primary plus one other boat); and the number of collectors (up to 3) operating under a license at any one time. There is also limited access to special management areas, which are areas in proximity to major population centres. This strategy is designed to minimise localised concentration of effort.

The Marine Aquarium Fish Fishery comprises 42 licenses, around 32 of which are active in the fishery. Some companies, including Cairns Marine, hold multiple licenses. The fishery operates in an area of approximately 400,000 square kilometres, including the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

Cairns Marine also possesses a Queensland General Fisheries Permit, which enables collection of nominated species and the use of gear that is outside of the management of other fisheries. We use this permit for the collection of sawfish species from the remote and inhospitable network of estuaries that flow into the Gulf of Carpentaria.

Queensland Coral Fishery

The Queensland Coral Fishery is based on the collection of a broad range of species from the classes Anthozoa and Hydrozoa. The key components are: live coral; ornamental (non living) coral; live rock (i.e. dead coral skeletons with algae and other organisms living on them); and Coral rubble (i.e. coarsely broken up coral fragments).

The key target species are generally the small and vibrant varieties of coral. Live rock is also a major component of the fishery, due to its suitability as a substrate for the smaller, brighter corals in aquarium tanks. Anemones are also part of the coral fishery and are a key target group.

The coral fishery has Total Allowable Catch of 200 tonnes with Individual Transferable Quota. The live coral component is capped at 30% of the TAC. The fishery is developmental and remains undersubscribed with majority of the annual take being the live rock component. There are 59 licenses endorsed for the coral fishery, the majority of which are businesses that are license holders in the Marine Aquarium Fish Fishery. Collection is by hand and the specimen selection is determined by market demand, which is typically brightly coloured and the size of a man's hand. The specimens must be in premium condition. The fishery operates exclusively within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, an area of about 350,000 square kilometres.

Renowned coral biologist, the late Dr. Vicki Harriott, assessed the sustainability of the Queensland Coral Fishery and concluded that: "The total harvest in the fishery is very small relative to the coral cover on the Great Barrier Reef, and the capacity of the reef to accumulate calcium carbonate material. It does not represent a risk to the integrity of the reef system on either a reef-wide or regional scale."

Coral Sea Fishery

The Coral Sea Fishery covers a vast area of around 870,000 square kilometres. Within that area there are two Nature Reserves covering approximately 17,000 square kilometres of coral reef habitat. Cairns Marine holds one of just two aquarium permits in the fishery.

The Coral Sea forms part of the East Bioregion of Australia's 15 million square kilometre territorial waters. Australia has committed to a National Representative System of Marine Protected Areas, which will see the establishment of numerous large Commonwealth Reserves for the purposes of marine biodiversity protection. These reserves are due for implementation in the Coral Sea in 2010 and will be zoned to allow sustainable use in some areas and total protection in others.

Management Framework

The Queensland Department of Primary Industries & Fisheries maintain a significant fisheries research capacity and these scientists undertake Ecological Risk Assessments and Species Vulnerability Assessments of those fisheries. In addition the Queensland fisheries maintain Performance Management Systems, which formalises the objectives, performance indicators, performance measures and management responses that have been developed by the managers with input from stakeholders, including Cairns Marine.

The Australian Fisheries Management Authority manages the Coral Sea Fishery and sustainability assessments are carried out by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation and the Bureau of Rural Sciences. The assessments guide adaptive and responsive fishery management, including the data needs of the fisheries and the placement of precautionary triggers on catch and effort.

Both fisheries management agencies produce annual status reports, and together with the Ecological Risk and Species Vulnerability Assessments for the Fishery Sustainability Assessment reports that submitted by the fishery manager to the federal environment department. The fisheries management agencies must demonstrate that their fishery management regimes comply with the objectives of ecologically sustainable development as defined in Australia's landmark environmental legislation, Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (the EPBC Act).

EPBC Act

The EPBC Act provides the continuous improvement framework for the management and environmental performance of all Australian fisheries. It is the tool used to apply a third party accreditation to our fisheries. Failure to meet the conditions of accreditation effects export approval, which will make or break the commercial viability of a fishery on the basis of its environmental performance.

One of the key objectives of the EPBC Act is to promote ecologically sustainable development through the conservation and ecologically sustainable use of natural resources. Specifically the EPBC Act aims to:

• conserve Australia's biodiversity;
• protect biodiversity internationally by controlling the international movement of wildlife;
• provide a streamlined environmental assessment and approvals process where matters of national environmental significance are involved;
• protect our world and national heritage; and
• promote ecologically sustainable development.

The EPBC Act is administered by the federal Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts. The Minister overseeing the Environment portfolio draws his ministerial responsibilities from the EPBC Act and that Minister also acts as the CITES Management Authority. The CITES Scientific Authority is member of the departmental staff.

Fishery Sustainability Assessment reports are submitted by the fishery managers according to predetermined cycle. Fishery management and performance is subject to Strategic Assessment under Part 10 of the EPBC Act. Strategic Assessments measure management performance against the "Guidelines for the Sustainable Management of Fisheries", which are based on the principles that guide the Marine Stewardship Council. The guidelines cover a number of individual objectives broadly relating to impacts to target species; bycatch and byproduct species; endangered, threatened and protected species; ecologically threatened communities; and the marine ecosystem generally.

Assessments relate to impacts on protected marine species under Part 13 of the EPBC Act; and for the purpose of export approval under Part 13A. Strategic Assessment of a commercial fishery as a Wildlife Trade Operation enables product from those fisheries to be exported. This level of accreditation carries a series of conditions and recommendations that the fishery manager must satisfy with a stipulated period, which is usually three years but may be less. Even when a fishery is granted a higher level of accreditation, the fishery manager must still satisfy stipulated conditions but generally within a longer timeframe.

The EPBC Act is a significant item of legislation that has brought fisheries management in Australia to a very high level and one that will continuously improve. The Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts is one of the largest bureaucracies in Australian government and these factors give our fisheries robust defensibility in questions of sustainability. This framework separates the Australian aquarium supply industry from others involved in the supply of marine life for aquaria.

Great Barrier Reef Marine Park

The World Heritage listed Great Barrier Reef is managed by a federal government statutory authority called the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. The goal of GBRMPA is to "provide for the long-term protection, ecologically sustainable use, understanding and enjoyment of the Great Barrier Reef through the care and development of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park".

Participants in the East Coast Dive-Based Fisheries (or Harvest Fisheries) are required to obtain a permit for operations within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. All aquarium fish and coral collection is undertaken under the permit, which comes in addition to the fisheries management arrangements.

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park was zoned under the Representative Areas Program commencing 1^st July 2004. Under that program, 33% of the Marine Park was assigned to no-take zones and a range of restrictions apply to other zones. No-take zones account for a minimum of 20% of each of 70 identified bioregions (important breeding and nursery areas such as seagrass beds, mangrove communities, deepwater shoals and coral reefs). Licensed specimen collection is allowed under permit in some Conservation Park zones; and all Habitat Protection and General Use Zones.

The management of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park has won numerous awards, including the coveted Banksia Award for environmental management. One of the key tools used is the development of an Outlook Report, which is a summary of the past and present condition of the environmental, economic and social values of the Great Barrier Reef and presents its possible future.

This first Outlook Report highlights that the Great Barrier Reef is one of the most diverse and remarkable ecosystems in the world and remains one of the most healthy coral reef ecosystems. Climate change, continued declining water quality from catchment runoff, loss of coastal habitats from coastal development and a small number of impacts from fishing are identified as the priority issues reducing the resilience of the Great Barrier Reef.  

Cairns Marine has been involved in the management of Marine Park through participation with the Fisheries Reef Advisory Committee, which provides expert input to the Fisheries Critical Issues Group at GBRMPA.

Industry Stewardship

Pro-vision Reef Inc is an Australian aquarium supply industry association representing licensed operators in the Queensland Marine Aquarium Fish Fishery; the Queensland Coral Fishery; and the Coral Sea Fishery. Established in 1992, membership accounts for around 90% of active participants in those fisheries. Our primary activity is to engender community and market confidence in the marine aquarium industry on the Great Barrier Reef and in the Coral Sea through demonstration of the highest standards of operational efficiency and environmental performance.

Cairns Marine was a driving force behind the development of a significant industry initiative. The Pro-vision Reef Stewardship Action Plan is a statement of operational standards in the aquarium supply fisheries that are based in Queensland. Developed in collaboration with collectors from the three fisheries together with the fisheries and protected areas management agencies and coral reef scientists, the Stewardship Action Plan establishes a uniform specimen collection standard across the industry.

A key component of the Stewardship Action Plan involves responding to events linked to climate change. This is believed to be a world's first for a fishery. Using coral bleaching as the key indicator, the Stewardship Action Plan contains a formal link to coral bleaching response plans developed by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and Fisheries Queensland. The plans are triggered when early warning sea surface temperature monitoring indicates a high risk of bleaching over the coming summer. At that point, aquarium collectors must conduct in situ assessments of affected sites according to predetermined protocols then report to GBRMPA. The Stewardship Action Plan contains rules for collecting (or not) at affected sites.

Aquarium fishers visit and dive areas of the Great Barrier Reef and Coral Sea that few, if any, management agencies ever reach. The initiative enables management agencies to receive otherwise unobtainable information in a timely fashion and in a consistent format.

The Stewardship Action Plan will be reviewed annually where the collection strategies will be reassessed. In parallel to implementation of the Stewardship Action Plan is a proposed research project to be undertaken by Professor David Bellwood from the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University. The project, which is expected to be approved before the end of the year aims to:

• Quantify the extent and nature of current and projected collection activities (i.e. understand the dynamics of collection activity and the key drivers of collection patterns).
• Quantify the ecological impacts of harvesting on coral reef populations and community structure (i.e. evaluate the extent to which harvesting may result in localised depletion of critical species and undermine reef resilience by reducing the capacity of local faunas to support key ecosystem processes).
• Evaluate the impact of the trade on ecosystem processes, reef resilience and regeneration (i.e. does collecting increase the risk of phase shifts through the collection of herbivores; does collection reduce reef resilience and limit regeneration potential; and can a climate change impacted Great Barrier Reef support the trade?)

It is expected that the research will guide the strategies articulated in the Stewardship Action Plan such that the strategies are fully defensible. The project will take 3-5 years (pending approval from the Australian Research Council) enabling incremental improvement in the Stewardship Action Plan through annual review.

Research that will accompany the Stewardship Action Plan will assess in fine detail the dynamics of collection activity on the Great Barrier Reef and in the Coral Sea. Importantly, it will also assess the broader effects of collection on key ecosystem processes and reef resilience in the face of events linked to climate change, which is designed to conclude principles that are replicable all over the world. 

Results of the research over the ensuing years will guide improvements to the collection strategies adopted within the Stewardship Action Plan. It is anticipated that, in time, these strategies will sustain robust scientific scrutiny and will form the basis for sustainable collection of aquarium specimens globally.

The collection strategies in the first edition of the Stewardship Action Plan are based on collector's experience, management expectations and are guided by scientists. However, this is the important first step. Once the research progresses and the collection strategies reflect the outcomes, the Stewardship Action Plan will mature. We believe that the initiative can be used as a template for adaptation and use in other commercial fisheries on the reef and assist reef managers with climate change preparedness.