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Overview

Atlas of Australian Marine Fishing and Coastal Communities

This Atlas focuses on mapping and analysis of Australian wild capture commercial, recreational and Indigenous fisheries and their adjacent coastal communities. The Atlas is the first Australia-wide, comprehensive and authoritative mapping of fishing activities and their related coastal communities and provides decision makers with a valuable scientific resource to inform current and future marine and coastal planning initiatives.

The Atlas was produced by the Bureau of Rural Sciences with the financial support of the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation and the Department of the Environment and Heritage - Marine Division and contributions from numerous agencies (see Contributors).

What can I do?

This website provides information in the form of regional fishing and social assessments, reports, maps and information on commercial fish species/families. You can view reports, regional summaries and pre-prepared maps. You can also make your own maps containing commercial fishing and coastal community themes using the Mapper. There is also a facility to find and map commercial catch of particular species or groups of commercial fish.

How is it organised?

The main components and organisation of the system are shown in the diagram below.

Home page

The home page provides a central access point to the system contents and contains a map that can take you straight to a particular Region.

Regions

Australia's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) has been divided into Marine Regions to provide a focus for describing marine fisheries and coastal communities.

Profiles have been prepared for each Marine Region. Each profile contains a brief description of the Region's fisheries and socio-economic characteristics, as well as links to Region-specific maps and analysis.

Reports

Provides a full list of reports and technical documents that make up the Atlas of Australian Marine Fishing and Coastal Communities, as well as related documents. A link to download the accompanying report Marine Matters National is also provided.

Maps

Pre-prepared thematic maps are provided of Australian commercial, recreational and Indigenous fishing sectors, along with maps of aquaculture and other themes. The page provides a description of the map, and a link to the actual map in GIF or PDF format. GIF files are small and easy to paste into other documents. PDF files are larger and have higher quality for printing.

Mapper (Make Your Own Maps)

The Mapper allows you to create your own maps containing commercial fishing catch and socio-economic indicators in adjacent coastal communities. Instructions are contained in the Mapper section of the site.

Species and Families

The Species and Families page allows you to find commercial fish (and invertebrate) species and display their catches within the Mapper. A species or family of interest can be found by using either the Search tool, the lists of species and families or from the dropdown lists available within the Mapper. Further instructions are contained in the Species and Families and Help pages of the site.