By Loretta B Manele
Filling in gaps in unassessed stocks through science is one way of supporting fisheries sustainability.
Dr Eva Plaganyi, Senior principal research scientist and research group leader based at CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) Environment, Australia spoke about this at the Honiara Summit last month.
Speaking as a panellist on Session 4: Supporting fisheries sustainability through science, she expressed that there is still a lot of work that needs to be done in filling some gaps around the numbers of unassessed stocks.
Plaganyi touched on the urgent need to address climate change through science.
In the case of applying science in fisheries sustainability, she outlined management strategy evaluation, forecasting techniques and modelling as scientific methods to test how resilient harvest strategies are.
Plaganyi said approaches like management strategy evaluation can be used to build the robustness of management methods that they are trying to use to help manage stocks sustainably.
On top of that, she stated that we can use some forecasting techniques and mentioned that there are a number of scientific advances in seasonal forecasting.
“That’s an example where we’re able to, again, use our scientific knowledge, share those outputs and enable better forward planning to respond to climate change.”
She went on to talk about modelling and stressed that to have adaptable and responsible frameworks there is the need for new modelling and data collection systems.
Plaganyi highlighted that modelling is a really powerful tool because it helps to test different strategies for how are we going to respond to future extreme events or climate events without actually having to first experience those events.
“We can try to figure out beforehand which strategies are winners and which ones are not likely to help us down the line.”
Plaganyi said that from the work being carried out by scientists around the world, there are a number of tools and methods that are now increasingly becoming available, like climate adaptation handbooks and seasonal forecasting tools.
She stressed that these are important not only in planning when is the best time to fish, but also to look after the fishes and communities themselves.
“In northern Australia, for example, we try to provide a heads up of when it might be too hot to go fishing, both because it’s harmful to the fishes as well as to handle the actual products and it would lose value if they fished at the wrong times.”
She furthered that these are the sort of gaps which she thinks science is being done at the moment on a case study basis, however, they are starting to pull that together and will be able to support the community.
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