Management Concern: Moderate    

Adequacy of Information: Moderate

Summary extracts from Outlook Report 2009

• Visitors to the Great Barrier Reef are consistently very happy with their visit and would recommend the experience.
  
• Typically people visit the Great Barrier Reef to enjoy swimming, fishing, boating and snorkelling. There is limited information about many species targeted by fishing and of the survival success of discarded species resulting in a poor understanding of the ecosystem effects of fishing.
  

What do we know?

Relevant pages from Outlook Online include:

• Economic value of recreational activities
• Range of activities undertaken by recreational users
• Conflicts of use and overcrowding
• Visitor satisfaction
• Fishing catch from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park
• Commercial fishing: retained catch trophic composition 
• Recreational fishing catch composition from 2005 diary program
• Annual status reports for Queensland fisheries 
• Stock assessment reports for Queensland fisheries 
• East coast fin fish fishery independent review
• Non-retained commercial fishing catch in 2007 
• Discards from the reef line fishery in the Great Barrier Reef 
• Sharks and rays: sustainability of target and by-catch species 
• Inshore net fishery by-catch
• Risk assessment of northern Australia sharks and rays
• Effects of zoning on coral trout
• Impact of by-catch reduction devices in the Queensland trawl fishery
• Use of by-catch reduction devices (BRD's) 
• Impact of commercial net fisheries on dugong, dolphin and turtle populations
• Strandings of cetaceans in Queensland and interactions with the Queensland shark control program
• The commercial dugong fishery in Queensland – 1847 to 1969
• East coast otter trawl fishery closures - effects on habitat and species
• Recovery of seabed biota after trawling
• Fishing offences
• Decline in shark catch in the Queensland shark control program (1962-2001)
• Decline in shark catch in the Queensland shark safety program (1992-2005)
• Capture of sharks and sawfish in the Queensland shark control program between 1964 and 1970 in the Townsville area 
• Historical population estimates for dugong in the Great Barrier Reef
• Fisheries: gear type and impacts on habitats and protected species
• Recreational fishing - comparison of spearfishing and line fishing
• Effects of line fishing on the Great Barrier Reef
• Impacts of marine debris, fishing lines and hooks on marine turtles
• Impact of entanglement in crab pots on marine turtles

Existing policies and management actions

• Commercial fishing: total gross value product (GVP) versus primary licences per fishery for 2007
• Fisheries: legislative management arrangements
• Fisheries: other management tools
• Fisheries: information systems 
• The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Zoning Plan
• Implementation of World Trade Organisation (WTO) conditions and recommendations from the latest EPBC assessment: progress by fishery
• East coast fin fish fishery independent review
• Fish spawning aggregation protection
  
• Queensland Fisheries Strategy 2009-2014 
• Queensland Fisheries policies and legislation
  
• Queensland Fisheries monitoring 
• Queensland management of commercial fisheries
  
• Queensland management of recreational fisheries 
• Policies and guidelines for managing tourism and recreational use

Future management requirements

• Great Barrier Reef recreation strategy

Defined research questions

• There are currently no defined research questions for this topic. Research questions will be developed, giving priority to interactions/issues that are of most concern to management.

Related information

• Current Research and Monitoring