Fisheries Occasional Publication No. 32 - Allocation of the Western Australian abalone resource between user groups

Authors

Department of Fisheries Western Australia

Files

Description

In this submission to the Integrated Fisheries Allocation Advisory Committee (IFAAC), the Department will outline what it believes are the most practical and cost effective ways of managing a system for allocating the abalone resource between the commercial, customary and recreational sectors.

In preparing this submission, it has been noted that because of the limited data on recreational catch outside of the metropolitan area, the Sustainable Harvest Limit (SHL) set for the fishery relates only to the area that is equivalent to Area 7 of the commercial fishery. Further, it is acknowledged that the Minister has approved that proportional catch shares should only be allocated for the area to which the SHL applies and that for parts of the fishery outside of the metropolitan area, IFAAC may make recommendations on other allocation mechanisms (e.g. spatial closures) to address local resource sharing issues.

Accordingly, the Department acknowledges the possible role that spatial closures, differential Legal Minimum Lengths (LMLs) and temporal closures could play in resolving resource sharing issues outside of the metropolitan area. Within the metropolitan area, the Department recommends establishing an average annual proportion of the SHL for the entire metropolitan area that may be taken by each sector over a five year period

The allocation to the commercial and recreational sectors should be specified as a percentage range of the SHL that may be taken rather than as a specific value. Furthermore, it is important that consideration is given to the method used to estimate recreational catch. The Department recognises that the field survey method is the most reliable for estimating catch within the metropolitan area, whereas the phone diary survey is the most reliable for bio-regional estimates of catch.

The Department considers development of a system to facilitate re-allocation of catch shares between sectors, should this be required in the future, as an integral component of the overall allocation strategy.

Finally, the abalone resource allocation for customary fishing is considered by the WA Government to have priority over that to the commercial and recreational sectors.

This submission should be read in conjunction with Fisheries Management Paper 204 - Integrated Fisheries Management Report: Abalone Resource (FMP 204).

ISSN

1447- 2058

Publication Date

10-2005

Series Number

32

Publisher

Department of Fisheries Western Australia

City

Perth

Number of Pages

34

Keywords

Abalone, Fisheries management, Western Australia, Roe's Abalone

Disciplines

Aquaculture and Fisheries | Biology | Business Administration, Management, and Operations | Management Sciences and Quantitative Methods | Marine Biology | Natural Resource Economics | Natural Resources and Conservation | Natural Resources Management and Policy | Sustainability | Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology

Comments

SUBMISSION TO IFAAC (Integrated Fisheries Allocation Advisory Committee)

Recommended Citation

Department of Fisheries Western Australia. 2005. Fisheries Occasional Publication No. 32 - Allocation of the Western Australian abalone resource between user groups. 32. Department of Fisheries Western Australia. Perth. , 34 pp.
https://library.dpird.wa.gov.au/fr_fop/85