Australia’s Commonwealth government has the responsibility of managing fish stocks between 3-200nm. To assist in the sustainability of fish stocks a classification system has been developed where the status of stocks are broadly categorised as overfished or not overfished.
Two broad jurisdictions exist: Commonwealth sole-managed fisheries and Commonwealth jointly-managed fisheries. Focussing on the former, the status of 65 stocks of the Commonwealth sole - managed jurisdiction were evaluated in 2014, and 7 stocks were reported to be overfished. Total catch, gross value of production (GVP) and stock status are typically presented separately and therefore it is not immediately clear what the stock status is in the context of the total catch and GVP. Specifically it is not known whether the catch of the overfished stocks contribute to a large proportion or small proportion of the total catch of the Commonwealth sole managed fisheries.
The Australian Bureau of Resources Economic and Sciences (ABARES) collects a large array of data on the total catch and GVP of over 100 fish stocks. Stock status is mainly determined by the current level of fishing mortality and the current level of biomass relative to its unfished state.
While it is a concerning issue to management and policy that 11% of stocks are classified as overfished, results indicate that that this only represents a small proportion (approx. 5%) of the total catch and economic value of those fisheries solely managed by the Commonwealth.
Quantifying the proportion overfished in the context of total catch will enable a better understanding of the level of risk that overfished stocks present to the total biomass and economic value of Commonwealth fisheries. Furthermore, overfishing of these stocks may misrepresent and overinflate the economic value of fisheries and may subsequently lead to false long term economic and social expectations.