Oral Presentation Australian Society for Fish Biology Conference 2017

Empirical harvest strategy and tier system for the Torres Strait tropical lobster fishery (#121)

Eva Plaganyi 1 , Roy Deng 1 , Robert Campbell 2 , Trevor Hutton 1
  1. CSIRO, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
  2. CSIRO, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

The Torres Strait tropical rock lobster (TRL) Panulirus ornatus fishery is a culturally and economically important fishery and the Australian Commonwealth has an obligation under the Torres Strait Treaty to protect the traditional way of life and livelihood of Islanders as well as promoting employment opportunities for Traditional Inhabitants. An empirical Harvest Control Rule (eHCR) has been developed to achieve the agreed ecological, economic and social management objectives of the fishery. Four alternative Operating Models are used in the testing process to capture consideration of a lower stock-recruitment steepness parameter, changing the assumption of a hyperstable relationship between CPUE and stock abundance, and a more conservative recruitment scenario. Simulations account for both observation error and different implementation errors for each of the three sectors. To accommodate potential changes in the amount of monitoring information available, and hence changes in the associated level of confidence in the scientific advice for decision-making, a hierarchical tier system is being developed. Tier systems broadly aim to reduce the risk when data are poorer, and ideally aim for risk equivalency such that different tiers have the same risk of depleting the stock below pre-specified levels. This talk provides an overview of the four Tier system under development for TRL, where each tier has its own eHCR based on the available data and assessment type.