Sustainable Seafood Forums

Since September 2006, OceanWatch Australia has held Sustainable Seafood Forums in a different state every six months. Members of the seafood industry and other organisations with an interest in seafood sustainability are invited to join the staff of OceanWatch Australia to workshop the topic “Achieving sustainable seafood – working together better to create a bright future.” We also take the opportunity to have a day in the field with the local fishing industry.

Hobart, Tasmania November 2007

The Tasmanian scene was set for the OceanWatch team after a fantastic afternoon aboard the Rock Lobster boat the Bold Contender skippered and owned by Nev Perryman. Thanks Nev.

We then workshopped our sustainable seafood theme with a diverse range of people including seafood restaurant owners, supermarket seafood buyers, fisheries managers, seafood industry associations, NRM staff, researchers and of course fishermen.

As our forum coincided with the national seafood industry conference, we were lucky to have people from all over the country and even one of our NZ neighbours in attendance. The day generated 23 concurrent sessions and much passioned discussion.

Key themes of the day were the difficulties of reaching sustainability when there are so many outside influences that the fishing industry does not control such as "upstream" environmental damage and recreational fishing effort. People left inspired though, at what they could achieve and left feeling comforted that so many others were sharing their concerns and were working towards a shared goal.

Coffs Harbour, NSW May 2007

Before getting into the serious work at Coffs we ventured down the coast a little to South West Rocks to join Bob Baker, Dave Mitchell (Mitch) and their team of beach haul fishermen for the day. The OceanWatch team were treated to a great day of hands-on action, including trying to learn the mysterious art of pulling beach worms! Thanks guys.

We then got to work the next day with a great group of our NSW friends including fisheries managers, fisheries habitat conservation staff, fishermen's cooperative staff, researchers, NRM staff, fishermen and others.

16 concurrent sessions were held over the day and key themes included discussion about aquatic habitat protection, bycatch mitigation and improving the public perception of the fishing industry. The forum improved our links with our key partners and improved everyone's understanding of where we were all coming from.

Noosa, Queensland September 2006

The Noosa trip began with a visit to the fishing wharf at Mooloolaba. We spoke with trawl fishers and tuna longliners and took a tour of the tuna operations, from the boats to the packing and processing areas.

Noosa was our first sustainable seafood forum. It was originally intended to be an in-house workshop for our staff, where we could invite a few key partners to join us.

We got so much out of having other people there that we decided all future forums would be a more open invite to anyone who had an interest in discussing sustainable seafood.

19 concurrent sessions were held over two days. One of the key themes to emerge at Noosa and has emerged at every forum since is the issue of public perception of the fishing industry. That is, that there is no recognition of the existing sustainable practices of the industry and that the bad PR the industry receives is largely unfair. From that came much discussion about what OceanWatch can do to publicise the good work that the industry is doing particularly with regards to bycatch mitigation and lessening threatened species interactions.