Ecological “Monitoring” and “Research” – a sensible separation or a detrimental division – lessons from the South Australian Sardine Fishery

The South Australian Sardine Fishery was established in 1991 and is now Australia’s largest fishery by weight, with a Total Allowable Catch in 2005 of 51,100 t.  The rapid development of this fishery has been underpinned by strong investment in scientific assessment by industry and the Commonwealth and SA Governments, and has been achieved through the establishment of a sophisticated and precautionary management system, which is strongly supported by stakeholders, including commercial and recreational fishers, and conservation groups. The integrated “monitoring and research” program that has supported the development of the fishery has also provided significant scientific outcomes (several large research grants and ~2 papers per year in international journals), including insights into the structure and function of the Flinders Current Ecosystem, and evidence to refute the existing paradigm that Australia’s seas are universally unproductive. This presentation provides an overview of the scientific program that has been established to underpin the development of an ecosystem-based approach to the management of the South Australian Sardine Fishery, and identifies the factors that have been critical to ensuring both the scientific success of the program and the achievement of strong ecological and economic outcomes. These factors include: strong investment by the Commonwealth Government prior to the development of an economically successful industry (FRDC); strong commitment by the SA Government to a cost recovery system that has delivered adequate funding for research (and importantly a reasonable balance of funding for management and research); a strong commitment by industry to funding an ongoing scientific program (vision, leadership, partnerships, and strategic investment); integration of “monitoring and research” activities into a scientific program that has resulted in the development of a “critical mass” of focused scientific capability; extensive involvement of students to maximise scientific outcomes (piggybacking); strong collaboration with research agencies/scientists with complementary skills and/or infrastructure; and a cultural emphasis within the scientific team on establishing effective relationships with stakeholders, quality assurance, peer review and scientific publication of outcomes.  We argue that the strong ecological and economic outcomes that have been achieved by the South Australian Sardine Fishery can be attributed directly to the success of the scientific program. We further suggest that the scientific success of this program can be attributed directly to the development of a “critical mass” of focused scientific capability that has resulted from the integration of the “monitoring” and “research” activities.