October ACE underway

The ACE round for the 1 October fishing year is currently under way. Panui providing details of Te Ohu Kaimoana's ACE allocation method and other conditions have been distributed to iwi.

However, this will be an ACE round with a bit of a difference. This ACE round is the first since six iwi organisations became Mandated Iwi Organisations (MIOs) under the Maori Fisheries Act. As a result, their population based share of some quota including all deepwater quota has been transferred into their hands, effectively leaving a smaller pool of ACE from which iwi can benefit.

The Chatham Islands iwi have both received all their entitlement and therefore won't be part of this and future ACE rounds, but the other four MIOs will be able to participate in the ACE round for shares of the quota they have not yet received.

All other iwi – Registered Iwi Organisations (RIOs) – continue to participate in the ACE round as usual.

All RIOs will now be allocated the population component of their ACE in line with the overall allocation model, e.g. deepwater stocks 75 percent population and 25 percent coastline, and will now only need to negotiate their inshore and the coastline proportion of deepwater allocation with neighbouring RIOs.

RIOs and MIOs are currently reaching agreement over shares of the fishstocks in their FMAs and providing documentation about that to Te Ohu Kaimoana. The normal sales contracts and management conditions will apply.

Four new species of fish stocks have been added to the Quota Management System (QMS) for the 2005 fishing year. They are Cockles (COC); Dredge Oysters (OYS); Pipi (PPI) and Tuatua (TUA). All four are classified as inshore stock.

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Protecting Māori fisheries assets for future generations