Michael Parkin Interviews President Recreational Fishing
Sunday 18 August, 2013
Michael Parkin
Interviews Geoff Rowling, President, NZ Recreational Fishing
Council
Q+A, 11-midday Sundays on
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Q+A
MICHAEL
PARKIN INTERVIEWS GEOFF ROWLING
MICHAEL
PARKIN
Mr Rowling, thank you for your time this
morning. We appreciate it. I do want to start with Snapper
1, and when you look at that allocation, recreational
fisherman last year took almost a thousand tons more than
they were supposed to of this fish, whereas the commercial
operations were close to their targets. Isn’t it right
that recreational fishermen take the cut
here?
GEOFF ROWLING - President, NZ
Recreational Fishing Council
Well, there’s a
couple of points there. The figures that were given about
recreational fishing are interim figures, and we’re not
quite sure about them. The figures that were set for the
amount that was available to be caught for public fishers
has never been agreed to in the first
instance.
MICHAEL
They’re the figures everybody has to play by,
aren’t they?
GEOFF
Well, according to the Ministry of Fisheries, yes.
They are the figures that they’ve created over the years,
but they haven’t actually been agreed to by the public in
the first instance. The other issue of commercial fishers
living within their allowances are not quite right either.
While in the process of catching that allowance, they’re
killing large numbers of juvenile fish, and they’re also
seeming to be dumping quite a lot of fish as
well.
MICHAEL But
let’s talk about the recreational guys first of all. I
mean, you’ve had some research done by the Auckland
Business School, and it says what percentage of the
population are recreational
fishermen?
GEOFF
There’s somewhere round 26 per cent of New
Zealanders that are fishing, and that’s people over 18
fishing more than three times a day, so quite a significant
portion if you add in the kids as
well.
MICHAEL 26 per
cent of people, though, yet you get 40% of this Snapper 1
allocation. So does that not seem fair
enough?
GEOFF
A question of fairness? I’m not too sure about
that one. It’s what happens to the rest of the fish that
are caught by the commercial sector. Are they available for
New Zealanders to eat, or are they sent away overseas? There
seems to be some problem with the price of fish in the shops
these days. It seems to be getting higher and higher all the
time.
MICHAEL But
there’s no problem getting that fish, is there, when you
go into the shop?
GEOFF
Not as far as I’m aware in most places,
no.
MICHAEL So what
would recreational fishermen be prepared to accept?
Obviously, Nathan Guy’s ruling out this cut to three.
Where will you meet the government on this, do you
think?
GEOFF
What I find with public fishers is that they are
prepared to play their part in the rebuild of fisheries.
What’s happened in this fishery is that over the last 20
years, the public fishers have taken a number of bag limit
reductions, so they are playing their part. What they feel
is that the commercial sector perhaps hasn’t played as big
a part, and they’re still continuing to use practices that
were maybe acceptable in their grandfather’s days but
aren’t acceptable to the fishing public any longer. So we
think there needs to be a two-pronged approach. If you look
at the paper that the minister put out, it creates
opportunities for the minister to cut the public access but
also increase the commercial access virtually at the same
time. So-
MICHAEL But
those commercial guys are meeting that limit, as we’ve
said. Really, don’t we have to tackle the problem of the
recreational fishermen
first?
GEOFF
No, we don’t actually think they are meeting
those limits. They are reporting that, but in the process of
doing that, they’re catching a lot of fish. For example,
in that fishery, there are two other fisheries - the gurnard
fishery and the trevally fishery - which are running at
about one at 50 per cent and the other at 65 per cent
caught. What that does then is enables commercial fishers to
go round and round and round out in Snapper 1 and search
these paper fish, and while they’re doing that, they tend
to get an inflated by-catch of snapper, and that creates the
problem. There is a poor balance in a lot of the catch
portfolios at the present
time.
MICHAEL So what
would you like to see happening? What’s the answer
here?
GEOFF
The answer? Well, you’ve got to go back to the
beginning of the quota management system and the setting up
of-
MICHAEL But, I
guess, what would you like to see come October when this
decision’s got to be
made?
GEOFF
I’d like to see the minister give everybody a
warning that things are looking- the possibility of catch
cuts are going to have to take place and that people need to
work together to work out how they’re going to manage this
fishery so that future generations’ access is
assured.
MICHAEL But
if you cut that commercial fishery, that’s going to cost
jobs. 1200 jobs out of Snapper 1 alone worth $180 million a
year. I mean, people would rather have a job than a fish,
wouldn’t they?
GEOFF
No, why are we going to cut the jobs? Are you
saying public fishing doesn’t create any jobs? Well, this
is the narrow economic focus the present government seems to
be following in fisheries is that all of the fish are
available for commercial use and very few for public use. So
I don’t subscribe to that. That’s a very narrow economic
doctrine that needs to be
changed.
MICHAEL Will
this issue cost National votes at the next
election?
GEOFF
Depending on how they handle it, absolutely. At the
next election, there is a great possibility now with these
issues being raised publically about the state of our
fisheries and the state of the legislation surrounding them
for all of the existing political parties who may want to be
part of the next government to come up with some decent
public fishing policy that looks into the whole scheme of
things.
MICHAEL And
what limit, though, will keep fishermen voting for National,
those who do already? I mean, where does it sit between
three and nine?
GEOFF
I don’t think I should make that call.
That’s-
MICHAEL
Somebody has to,
though.
GEOFF
I know. It’s the minister’s decision, and I
don’t want to pre-empt the minister’s decision. It’s
his prerogative. He is second only to God when it comes to
making decisions about fishing allocations in this
country.
MICHAEL Is
that right? Should he
be?
GEOFF Uh,
probably not, no. I think it’s actually political
decisions made about political expediency, and the
management of our fisheries isn’t necessarily the best way
to do things, and I’d like to see some reforms take place
so we get better management, better marine
stewardship.
MICHAEL A
bigger issue for another day. Geoff Rowling, thank you very
much for your
time.
GEOFF
Ok, thank
you.
ENDS