Prize haul by IMAS fisheries students
Two fisheries students from the University of Tasmania's specialist Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) have walked away with prizes at the Australian Society for Fish Biology (ASFB) Conference in Hamilton, New Zealand.
Tim Emery and Rob Parker, both PhD candidates at IMAS, now have prize money for travel to present an oral paper at an international conference that is relevant to the activities of the ASFB in the year of the award.
"Winning these student awards is a big deal," said Associate Professor Caleb Gardner, IMAS fisheries expert.
"You are always up against a talented field. Both Tim and Rob have done research that affects people and this always helps catch the eyes of the judges."
Rob Parker, who is one year into his PhD, won the CSIRO Best Oral Presentation award. His presentation, titled Energy use in Australian fisheries: Economic performance, environmental impact and implications for management was deemed to be best fitting to the theme of the conference: Aquatic Science at the Interface.
"My work deals with fuel use in fisheries which is important economically because of rising oil prices, carbon taxes, substantial fuel costs to fishermen, and also environmentally, with concern around greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.
"Fuel use also has a social element because of the need to sustain fishing communities, and improving efficiency of global food production systems in the face of rising food prices and food security concerns," Rob said.
"I think it is safe to assume that fisheries and other food production systems will need to adapt to a world where energy costs more, governments regulate or tax emissions, and consumers demand greener food choices; my research explains the effect of these changes on Tasmanian and other Australian fisheries."
Tim Emery won his prize for a manuscript entitled Fishing for revenue: how leasing quota can be hazardous to your health.
"My PhD work, and this paper in particular, is about the way that commercial fishers make decisions and whether this can shape fisheries policy," said Tim.
"In this paper I examined why fishers sometimes choose to work in rough and dangerous weather conditions. I used the Tasmanian southern rock lobster fishery and how this interacted with expected revenue per potlift and the amount of quota units they owned."
"This is important because there has been little attempt to consider the effects of fisheries management regulations and policies on operational health and safety (OH&S) of fishers. It's important to understand how different types of fishers respond to physical risk to prevent changes in rules leading to deterioration of OH&S."
Assoc Prof Gardner said "Tim's award was an unusual choice because it was more about people than about fish, so not the standard paper that would win a prize at the Australian Society of Fish Biology."
"Importantly it deals with how we manage fisheries and shows that some systems actually influence the risk of people getting killed while fishing. It doesn’t get more serious than this," Assoc Prof Gardner said.
"Very well done to both Tim and Rob, it is very heartening to see this kind of novel and applied research being taken notice of at conferences like the ASFB."