The report is said to coincide with another independent release on allocations for the sectors involved. The report is developed under the State Government’s Integrated Fisheries Management policy to identify sustainable harvest levels, to ensure Western Australian fisheries can be managed in a sustainable way. Acting General Manager Aquatic Management Kevin Donohue said the department’s role was to assess a range of factors to establish a recommended harvest level per year from the West Coast demersal (bottom-dwelling) scalefish resource.
Accotrding to Donohue after establishing the sustainable harvest, the independent Integrated Fisheries Allocation Advisory Committee (IFAAC) then recommends to the Fisheries Minister what proportion of the harvest should be allocated to the commercial, recreational and customary fishing sectors. This resource report provides comparative data between the fishery’s recreational and commercial sectors.
Donohue said the recommended harvest level of around 715 tonnes is a reduction of at least 50 percent of the 2005/06 harvest levels. Allocating every species in the suite of West Coast demersal scalefish is difficult for IFAAC so there is only most popular demersel species allocation.
