Scoping the biosecurity risks and appropriate management relating to the freshwater ornamental aquarium trade across northern Australia.
Other Publication ResearchOnline@JCUAbstract
The primary recommendation of this report is that the federal government and the Australian people develop behaviour that protects freshwater ecosystems in tropical Australia from the biosecurity threats posed by the freshwater aquarium trade. This will entail getting the issue into mainstream public discourse, generating funding models and properly resourcing preventive risk actions and protective actions on the ground. This resourcing is not just in terms of dollars, but in ensuring that staffing appointments to key roles in the biosecurity process are not diluted with other tasks such as fisheries compliance, agricultural biosecurity or human safety matters. Dedicated expertise and focus (in compliance, communication, coordination and scientific and social science) are required to deal with the aquarium trade related biosecurity issues. To this end, we provide four overarching recommendations, with more detailed context and specific recommendations for action provided elsewhere in the report. 1. Establish a national focus on biosecurity in freshwater by instating a Freshwater Pest Sectoral Committee to the level equivalent to that of the Marine Pests Sectoral Committee 2. Effectively inform and educate community and government about the magnitude of current and future biosecurity risks from tropical aquarium trade and the consequences for northern Australian freshwater ecosystems and society. 3. Develop an independent understanding of the human networks that lead to impact including future potential impact to tropical aquatic ecosystems in tropical Australia. 4. Develop regional solutions to protecting aquatic ecosystems. Specifically, this is termed ‘translational ecology’ whereby partnerships are formed to develop ongoing solutions to address aquarium trade specific biosecurity risks aimed at catchment and regional scales in northern Australia.
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20/17
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96
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TropWATER, James Cook University
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Townsville, QLD, Australia
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