Australian fisheries production

Extract:
Introduction
The seafood industry is currently Australia’s sixth largest primary industry. Fisheries resources were an important source of food for Indigenous Australians and continue to be both a food resource and important in social systems for some communities (Bailey 1975;Walters et al. 1987; Ross and Tomkins 2011), and they have played an important role in Australia’s food security more generally since European settlement.Seafood is harvested by commercial fishers from the wild (oceans, rivers, lakes) or produced on farms (aquaculture and mariculture). Recreational fishing is an important part of the overall fisheries picture, and recreational fishers may obtain all or part of their seafood needs by their own efforts.The focus of this chapter is on wild fisheries and aquaculture (mariculture is subsumed)and their contribution to national food production and export. Fishing and aquaculture are unique in the context of Australian primary industries in that they are founded on the use and development by individuals of publicly owned natural resources, managed on behalf of Australian communities by governments.