00:00So these models are like really complicated accounts that kind of keep track of how many
00:07fish we have in our fisheries.
00:09So they're keeping track of new babies coming in through births and fish going out through
00:13deaths or being caught.
00:14So they're really important to let us know whether we're fishing sustainably.
00:18Now I know that you were concerned that these models were perhaps not accurate, so you embarked
00:24on your own investigations.
00:26What did you do?
00:27What did you set out to achieve?
00:28Yeah, so we looked at 230 fisheries from around the world and we looked at how these models
00:34compared to older versions done when they were backdated.
00:37So these models are repeated year after year so we can get an idea of how fish stocks are
00:43tracking.
00:44And what we found was that the numbers of fish or the amount of fish in the ocean tended
00:47to be overstated by these models.
00:50And that situation tended to be worse when a fish stock was approaching overfishing limit.
00:54So that's just the moment when we need to take management action.
00:58So why do you think then these models aren't right?
01:02Why haven't the authorities kept up with it?
01:06Well they're very complex models, it's a very difficult job as you can imagine to figure
01:10out how many fish are in the ocean.
01:12There's a lot of fish out there and we can't see them and they move around.
01:17So there's a lot of account keeping that has to be done and there's a lot of room for error
01:20to come into these models.
01:22And it just seems that the way that's been done, we're saying there's more fish than
01:27there actually is and the models are not giving us consistent results through time.
01:32Which areas did you look at in particular, were there any commercially viable fishing
01:36areas around Australia that you looked at?
01:40Some of our Australian fisheries were included in the analysis and I will say by and large
01:44Australia's fisheries are considered sustainable.
01:47So about 70% of our fisheries are sustainable and about 15% of those managed by the Federal
01:53Government are in that category of overfishing.
01:57So these are the ones we really need to look after to get them back to being productive fisheries.
02:01Can you just remind our viewers what the consequences of overfishing is?
02:05Yeah, so when we overfish a fish stock it means we can't catch fish anymore or as many
02:10fishers as we were.
02:11This means we lose jobs, we lose economic production, so our fisheries are worth one
02:16and a half billion per year in economic production to Australia.
02:20And obviously for Australian communities fisheries are a really important part of our culture
02:24and social structure.
02:25So we lose a lot of those benefits if we don't look after our fisheries properly.
02:30So how did some of these discrepancies come about?
02:35So when we're looking at these complex stock models there's a lot of calculations that
02:39have to be done and if they're not done properly or if things are changing over time then that
02:46means as we fish a population down and the number of fish starts to reduce we might not
02:51be noticed that we're losing those fish.
02:54That means when we should be reducing catches we're not because we're not realising we're
02:57approaching this overfishing status.
03:00So Christopher, what action would you like to see taken as a result of your investigations?
03:06Well I think we need to look more into how these models are done and look at ways to
03:10improve them so that they're more consistent and we're not getting this bias.
03:14I think that every day Australians might be wondering too, should I eat seafood?
03:18I say yes, go out there and eat seafood but I'd just like Australians to do one thing
03:22differently.
03:23I would like you to ask where your seafood comes and what species it is and get some
03:26information and support Australian fisheries that are sustainably fished.
03:30So how can they find out if it is coming from a sustainably fished area?
03:36You can ask your fish producers where your fish is coming from and Australian fisheries
03:41you can look up their status on the Status of Australian Fish Stocks webpage and that
03:45will give you the information that we have on all of our fisheries.
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