fREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
What is Shared Fisheries about?
The Quota Management System (QMS) for 20 years has been evolving towards the goal of rights-based management.
However, the Shared Fisheries Discussion Document distributed by the Ministry of Fisheries signals a sharp U-turn away from the direction that fisheries management has been taking over those years. The paper’s proposals move away from the environmentally successful rights-based management system rather than closer towards it.
The subtitle of the discussion paper is “Proposals for Managing New Zealand’s Shared Fisheries: A Public Discussion Paper”. However, the paper actually contains no proposals to improve management, and instead looks at proposals for allocation of shares between the sectors, which do not create any incentives for good fisheries management.
The QMS was implemented in 1986 in response to declining inshore fisheries around New Zealand. It has received widespread international recognition as the world’s most advanced fisheries management system through the introduction of perpetual property rights for the commercial sector (including 20% for iwi through the Treaty of Waitangi (Fisheries Claims) Settlement Act), and in doing so created positive incentives for sustainable management.
Those who have an interest in utilising our fisheries have responsibility for ensuring it is protected and conserved for future generations.
The Ministry of Fisheries has, over a long period of time, consistently stated that its long-term goal is to move all of the sectors within the QMS – that is, customary non-commercial, commercial and the recreational sectors – into a rights-based system of management.
Shared fisheries are those in which all sectors have an interest. The Government has identified shared fisheries as including:
- Inshore fisheries, such as snapper, blue cod, kahawai, rock lobster and paua,
- Offshore fisheries, such as gamefish, and
- Freshwater fisheries, notably eels, which are an iconic species for Maori.