The Commission met in Adelaide on 27-28 April 2016. While in Adelaide, Commissioners and AFMA senior executives also held AFMA’s Annual Public meeting on the morning of 27 April (AFMA Public Meeting Presentation 2016). This meeting provided stakeholders with the opportunity to meet with AFMA Commissioners and hear some of the highlights over the last 12 months as well as challenges AFMA faces for the year ahead. Commissioners also held separate informal discussions on 28 April 2016 with Sean Sloan (Director, Fisheries and Aquaculture Policy, PIRSA) and Senator the Hon Anne Ruston, Assistant Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources.
Key decisions taken by the Commission at its meeting included:
Small Pelagic Fishery (SPF) Harvest Strategy and Total Allowable Catches (TAC) for 2016-17
Total Allowable Catch (TAC) limits and amounts and percentages for overcatch and undercatch for SPF for 2016-17 fishing year were agreed.
Removal of net length restrictions in the shark gillnet sector of the Southern and Eastern Scalefish and Shark Fishery (SESSF)
Gillnet length restrictions will be removed in Commonwealth waters (excluding State waters and for fishers without e-monitoring), following implementation of the Dolphin Strategy to the remainder of the gillnet fishery. AFMA will monitor the impacts of removing gillnet restrictions on school shark, snapper, quota species discards and Threatened, Endangered and Protected species, as well as total net length set and review the impacts through the Resource Assessment Group process.
Strategies for protected species – seabirds
Agreement on a set of principles that will form the basis of an AFMA protected species (seabirds and mammals) strategy. This will guide fishery managers on how to choose and implement mitigation measures that avoid and minimise interactions with protected species in Commonwealth fisheries. Noting that the Commonwealth Bycatch Policy and supporting guidelines are currently under review, the Commission emphasised the importance of AFMA linking its strategies with the new policy when finalised.
The Commission also discussed AFMA’s management strategies for overfished stocks noting that two workshops were to be held in late May/early June that would be examining undercaught TAC and investigating the decline or lack of recovery of low biomass stocks respectively; and the need for further exploration of AFMA’s application and measurement of social objectives (AFMA Management will prepare a paper for consideration at the next Commission meeting on how AFMA should take the social aspects of fisheries management into account).
Norman Moore
Chairman
May 2016