Sharing fisheries with other users
The Fisheries Ministry will soon begin talks with stakeholders around the country about how some fish species are shared between recreational, customary and commercial users.
These discussions are also likely to be made more difficult by the fact some stakeholder groups have launched a challenge in the High Court.
The talks are a first step at developing a new framework for managing shared fisheries such as snapper, rock lobster, paua, blue cod, kingfish and kahawai. The ideas gathered from the discussions will be used to develop a document for public discussion that should be ready for release in mid June.
How much each sector can catch has long been an issue for shared fisheries. According to the Ministry of Fisheries, the fisheries law does not provide a way in which to properly allocate an amount to each of the users.
The talks come as the New Zealand Recreational Fishing Council Inc and the New Zealand Big Game Fishing Council seek a High Court decision that will better define the public's right to fish. It is centred on Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton's decision to cut the annual total allowable catch of kahawai by 10 percent for both commercial and non-commercial fishers.
Mr Anderton made the 10 percent cut based on uncertainty whether kahawai stocks are above or below the maximum sustainable yield for fish stocks.
New Zealand Recreational Fishing Council president Keith Ingram says the High Court proceedings involve important legal questions that will clarify the rights of the fishing public and which have not been resolved in the 20 years since introduction of the quota management scheme in 1986.
The commercial fishing industry, represented by Sanford, the Sealord Group and Pelagic and Tuna NZ Limited, have issued a counterclaim against the Minister's decision over the management and allocation of kahawai, signalling widespread dissatisfaction on this issue from all sectors of the fishing industry.
The Minister says policy will be the subject of further advice by officials, and his decision is based on the conflicting information from the non-commercial and commercial fishing sectors.
The commercial sector has claimed that there are no credible sustainability concerns in the kahawai fishery and that anecdotal evidence of reduced catch by recreational fishermen holds more weight in government circles than scientific evidence gathered by industry. They say that without additional management measures to reduce non-commercial catch, any reduction will only hurt those governed by the quota management system (QMS).
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Protecting Māori fisheries assets for future generations