Draft Tropical Rock Lobster Fishery Harvest Strategy

Key points of the draft harvest strategies are that they:

1. Identify the fishery objectives. Fishery objectives set out the direction and aspirations to achieve in the long term.  The objectives are to:

• maintain the tropical rock lobster resource at, or returned to, a target spawning biomass level that aims to maximise economic yield (MEY) for the fishery

while:

• minimising and mitigating high ecological risks arising from fishing related activities
• maximising economic yield for the commercial fishing sector
• maintaining sectoral catch shares
• monitoring the social and economic benefits of the fishery to the community.

2. Manage the performance of the fishery using key indicators

• The relative amount of fish biomass of key stock(s) will be measured against target and other reference points.
• The harvest strategy aims to achieve a target reference point (Btarg) of 60% of the unexploited spawning biomass (for key target species).
• For key stocks, performance indicators and sustainable harvests for all sectors will be estimated from a stock assessment.

3. Sets decision rules for the commercial harvest of key species

• A change in allowable catch may be triggered if the biomass of the key species falls below the target biomass.
• To ensure no fishing sector is increasing its catch share at the expense of another, the harvest strategy includes decision rules for maintaining catch shares between sectors. For example, if there is a change to the total allowable commercial catch, changes may also be made to recreational in possession limits.

4. Minimise ecological risks from fishing

• If an Ecological Risk Assessment (ERA) identifies fishing impacts that are considered to generate an unacceptable level of risk to any secondary or byproduct species’ populations, a review is triggered.
• The review will investigate the reason for the increased risk, and appropriate management action will be taken to reduce the risk to an acceptable level.