HumanFM Press Release –

NZ’s Fishing Industry: What’s To Be Proud Of?

The ugly side of New Zealand’s performance as a fishing nation was exposed at the latest of the DO SOMETHING! public seminars held at Victoria University’s Anglican Chaplaincy Tuesday night.

Speaking at the seminar Bob Zuur, of the World Wildlife Fund, highlighted New Zealand’s mixed performance against the international Code of Conduct measures used by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation – adding that even though New Zealand is generally ranked in the top ten of ‘least worst’ performers, a closer examination of its overall record of fishing practices is “nothing to be particularly proud of”.

During the panel discussion – held with Bob Zuur, Pamela Mace of the Ministry of Fisheries and Victoria University’s Cath Wallace – the adequacy of responses to known overfishing of Orange Roughy and Hoki and a current record of 25% overfishing across all fish stocks – as well as issues related to the grossly damaging effects of bottom trawling and bycatch of other fish and wildlife – were vigorously debated.

Concern was expressed by the setting limits which reduce stocks to 30% of their virgin state was far too low, particularly as that limit is in many cases actually overshot. When audience members asked why fishing limits were not set more cautiously, it was suggested by Cath Wallace that restructuring in the Ministry of Fisheries means that scientists’ recommendations can be over-ruled by managers, who are themselves under pressure from a powerful and litigious fishing industry.

It was generally agreed that there was inadequate public debate or awareness of what is going on in the fishing industry, an absence of contestable public-good science and, in Pamela Mace’s view, a lack of accurate or critical media coverage.

In keeping with the ethos of the DO SOMETHING! series, members of the audience were urged to only buy sustainably harvested fish (using the Forest & Bird Best Fish Guide and Greenpeace Red Fish List), call for more marine reserves to be established and policed within the EEZ and to consider a ‘name and shame’ campaign of powerful fishing companies who bully the Ministry of Fisheries into increasing catch limits of specific stocks when there is inadequate data to be certain of their status.

A fundamental problem identified for the Ministry of Fisheries by Cath Wallace is that the Fisheries Act does not give more weight to ensuring environmental sustainability than the utilisation of the fisheries resource, failing to recognise that the latter ultimately depends on the former.

Pamela Mace, Chief Scientist at the Ministry of Fisheries, defended the Ministry’s efforts to establish successful and responsible fisheries management systems, while acknowledging that the Ministry has no plans for protecting the underlying ecosystems in our surrounding inshore sea or offshore ocean. Cath Wallace was particularly critical of Benthic Protected Areas which she prefers to call ‘Bogus Protected Areas’, because “they are protecting what is in fact not fished”.

Presentations, audio and video interviews with the speakers for all DO SOMETHING! events can be found at www.dosomething.org.nz

ends

© Scoop Media