4.5 Socio-economic implications

Description

This project undertook a range of social and economic studies to help increase our understanding of some of the underlying factors that must be considered when managing fisheries and aquatic ecosystems.

Due to the lack of data on social and economic aspects of management of the scalefish fisheries in Western Australia, the socially important west coast demersal scalefish fishery was chosen as a case study of the commercial, charter and recreational sectors of this resource.

These studies involved examination of historic data along with interviews of current fishers to generate up-to-date data.

The first step was to conduct a detailed workshop-based study of suitable methods, followed by observational fieldwork and direct interviews with fishing sector members to collect detailed information. Phone-based surveys of recreational fishers were undertaken to ascertain changes in behaviour in response to implementation of new management measures for the west coast demersal scalefish fishery.

Aims

The objective of these sessions was to facilitate a discussion of the implications of the modelling and the implications of the results for understanding the way in which existing restrictions have affected fisher behaviour.