Spearfishers and Scientists Join Forces on Climate Change

An interesting overview of the project?? ROTFL

I was originally approached by the NSW exec of the USFA as we had received a $5000 grant from the NSW Recreational Fishing Trust (our fishing licence money at work). As a spearfishing mentor it was put to me that one of our "future leaders" should conduct a project on "The impact of recreational spearfishing in Sydney Harbour", I said "no way". For a decade I had been trying to get an indices established using our scoresheets as data. We could establish algorithms on the catch per effort & monitor the trends in abundance of fish for the last forty years using our old score sheets. No one else has the data that spearfishing clubs do. $5000 was never going to cover it, but it got the door slightly open.

At this time we had an excellent young man who was completing his marine biology degree in our "future leaders" programme (not even a mention of him in this article?). He agreed to take on the project & together with volunteers, & further commitment of funding from the USFA NSW we entered over 35000 fish including when where & who speared them going back 40 years.

Notice I haven't mentioned any Universities or the CSIRO yet?

What happened when the Universities & CSIRO found out about what we were doing, is they then went to the individual clubs & offered them a little money to let them use the data instead. Lots of research dollars in climate change in this info, or am I just cynical? To be brief there was a "LOT" of hot air & expletives being exchanged. Finally I got Daniel (the bloke in the photo from CSIRO in Hobart) around a table & suggested that "he could throw himself off the tallest building he could find" because that is exactly what they were doing to the USFA & the project that "WE" started. Also, if needed I would visit every club exec in NSW personally & persuade them not to give the CSIRO the data. By the end of the "negotiations" we had agreed to allow the CSIRO to use our data ,but we retain the right to veto any publications it is used in . The CSIRO have only paid us to use this info on one climate change project so far. The USFA has no position on climate change & we only collect & own the data & monitor trends, we don't make hypothesise on the processes which cause trends (theres already too many scientists to do that).

What we have accomplished from this, apart from good monitoring & hopefully better management is an permanent income stream for the USFA, anyone wanting to use our data may be required to pay for it. We have raised the profile of spearo's , & the Underwater Skindivers & Fisherman's Association, the index is called "The USFA index". I'm happy because it also means that the antis can't fiddle with spearfishing comps, if they do, by even removing a single fish, divers will shift effort & the rigour of the indices will be effected, & there is no other base line of data stretching back 40 years.

Sorry If I've cast a shadow over anyones party, but I hope if there are others on here who deal with, or are considering getting involved with the politics of spearfishing that they gain some insight. This article does credit us for shooting the fish, but not for all the work in the concept or establishing the indices & owning the actual data. It's going to be an interesting discussion next time they want to use our data.lol

Cheers Sharkey

Hi all, I’ve since had a chat with Bob to better understand the concerns he's raised above, and while we both now have a better understanding, we agreed I'd make some comments on the forum to explain several things to other interested spearos. No media article can address every detail of such a long-running and complex project, or mention the name of everyone involved, so it is good to have the opportunity to cover additional points here, and point people to some more information and reports that the project team produced (apologies for the length).

The article appearing in Deeper Blue is built on a media release from late 2012, and the final report for the project. Both of these acknowledge the representatives of USFA (the excellent young man you mention) & Southern Freedivers (SFD) in Victoria who are members of the research team and authors on all scientific publications coming from this work. See here for media release: http://www.csiro.au/Portals/Media/2012/Changing-marine-environment.aspx, and here for final report: https://publications.csiro.au/rpr/pub?pid=csiro:EP138831.

We also prepared a 2 page summary of the project which I hope has been emailed to members in both states, I've attached this below.

Firstly, all data remain the property of clubs, no datasheets have been donated to CSIRO, and clubs retain all their own IP rights. Data are to be used for this project alone, any future use by ourselves or others will require new discussions. Spearfishers get all hard copies returned along with a list of all data uncovered, and a database of all data entered – this can be used for ongoing data entry if desired.

The project was begun following a paper examining change in Tasmanian waters, available here: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1466-8238.2010.00575.x/pdf. The lead author was a spearfisher a few decades back, and we used spearfisher data from competitions held in Tasmanian waters. We then approached members of the Australian Underwater Federation (AUF) to build a collaborative project with spearfishers, this was independent of any prior USFA work. We approached a number of long-standing spearfishers and data holders to gauge support for a project, and following a cautiously favourable response negotiations for data were held with USFA executive in NSW and SFD in Victoria. We didn’t run around trying to buy data. I am now aware of earlier work to utilise the data (including those mentioned by Bob), but this project was funded and run independently of these efforts.

This has been a long process, and people like Bob have had a long and challenging history working to look out for the sport, and to recognise the value of these data. I therefore once again thank the many spearfishers who contributed to the ideas, data and delivery of this project. All parties have spent a lot of time, and a few robust discussions, trying to recognise and address spearfisher concerns and to build a partnership. The project has strongly demonstrated support from spearos to see natural resources managed in a sustainable manner - a message we'll do our best to share.

I look forward to further discussion and will address any questions as best I can.

Thanks

dan

Thank you Dan for posting on here & clarifying for all that the data is still owned by us, & that simutainiously our two groups were working on similar projects without knowledge of each other. Then under your own guarantees we merged (see you didn't have to put your own house on the line, LOL) it makes my position much easier. Many of us also had to personally guarantee to our forefathers in the sport that we would use the scoresheets & data wisely & in spearfishings best interests.

I'm looking forward to seeing were this index takes us, hopefully well beyond the current project that yourself & the CSIRO is using it for. There is hope, when a broken down old spearo like myself & a scientist with good communication like yourself can start to can start to build bridges. Lets hope we have fewer "robust discussions" in the future & trust & good faith between our respective positions can flourish.

All The Best!
Bob