In fisheries stock assessment, free software tools have proliferated in recent years. These tools provide standardised and, in many cases, well‐tested and efficient ways to conduct and support stock assessments, making cutting edge expertise globally accessible. However, they come with considerable ongoing costs, beyond their conceptual development and coding. We seek to understand and analyse the process by which fisheries st...

Fisheries stock assessment capacity faces resource constraints in many countries, including limited personnel, high workloads, and restricted funding. Stock assessment scientists often operate under short timelines, with outcomes that can influence livelihoods and receive public scrutiny. Scientists frequently manage multiple assessments each year, making time management a challenge. Consequently, finding opportunities to inve...

Marine protected areas (MPAs) have been implemented globally to protect marine habitats and enhance biodiversity, often displacing commercial and recreational fishing activities previously occurring in the area. While the ecological impacts of MPAs have been the subject of considerable attention, the economic impacts on the displaced sectors have generally received less consideration. In this study, we examine the impacts of i...

By March 2020 coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was anticipated to present a major challenge to the work undertaken by scientists. This pandemic could be considered just one of the shocks that human society has had and will be likely to confront again in the future. As strategic thinking about the future can assist performance and planning of scientific research in the face of change, the pandemic presented an opportunity to...

The existence of a commercial fishery in a coastal community is often promoted by the tourism sector as a key feature to encourage visits by tourists. However, the contribution of fisheries to tourism in coastal communities in the economic literature is unclear, with mixed results from previous studies. In this study, we examine the counterfactual—how would tourism change in the absence of fishing, and how would this affect be...

The Torres Strait tropical rock lobster Panulirus ornatus (TRL) fishery is of immense social, cultural and economic importance to the region’s Indigenous fishers from both Australia and Papua New Guinea (PNG). During 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic indirectly impacted this fishery as well as a number of other fisheries reliant on international export markets. The TRL fishery is managed using an empirical (data-based) Harvest Contr...