Industry's problems can't be blamed on recreational fishers

GUEST OPINION

This op-ed responds to "Recreational fishing – the forgotten sector" by The NZ Initiative's Randall Bess. Some commenters have maintained the Initiative's position is pro-commercial fishing and anti-recreational fishing.

Now that The NZ Initiative's Future Catch report has been thoroughly laid to bed, we can get on and look at the real problems of the fishing sector and how to resolve them.

While The Future Catch laid all the problems of the world at the feet of the recreational fisher, the truth is somewhat different. Recreational fishers take less than 3% of the total harvest from New Zealand’s marine waters. If we look at just the inshore fisheries, recreational fishers take less than 20% of the total harvest.

In fact, recreational fishers take fewer fish than are dumped illegally by commercial fishers each year, let alone the total number of fish taken by industrial methods, and that’s the crux of the problem in a nutshell.

Industrial fishing has grown out of hand right around the world in the years since the Fisheries Act was introduced in New Zealand. Today’s commercial fishers are far more efficient than their forefathers were. They use satellite navigation, helicopter spotters. They have nets that scoop up everything from the seabed and beyond and they don’t stop.

The impact of that scale of industrial fishing has had on the environment and on the stock numbers is astonishing to behold and unfortunately the Quota Management System (QMS) simply hasn’t kept up.

Instead of reducing the catch levels each year to ensure each species can produce more fish to catch in future, catch levels have largely gone untouched in all but a precious few species, and even when the maximum levels are moved, they tend not to have the desired impact. Commercial factors are brought to bear and with the Ministry for Primary Industries wedded to a goal of doubling the value of New Zealand’s primary sector exports, the value of the dollar was always going to win out over the value of more fish left in the sea.

We want to see the new Minister of Fisheries address all of that and more. We want to see a new-look ministry that can ensure our children and our grandchildren can all go fishing in their lifetimes and we can’t do that if we continue to strip-mine the fisheries to sell pulped fish to African nations for $1.20 a kilo.

Recreational fishers have been shouting about overfishing for many years now. Snapper, crayfish, gurnard, hapuku, we’ve seen many species hunted to the edge and beyond and called for reduced take. Unfortunately recreational and customary fishers who leave fish in the sea are more than trumped by commercial fishers who don’t see it the same way. They fish on regardless.

The first step, as we see it, is to establish a Commission of Inquiry into all aspects of fisheries management and the Quota Management System, with nothing left off the table. This is the appropriate forum to consider all aspects of New Zealand fisheries management including commercial, customary and recreational fishing. Only once the Commission of Inquiry  is complete, should we be considering implementing solutions, absolutely certainly not before.

If we really want to address the problems of the fishing sector we must start and end with ensuring there are fish in the sea for future generations.

New Zealand fisheries are suffering from a catastrophic lack of governance. Instead of tinkering with the QMS in the hopes that magically the fish will restore themselves to abundance, we need to act and act now. No more industry-led “science” that reports all is fine. No more reporting based commercial value but instead a view of the fisheries based on the science of fish themselves.

There are three key stakeholders in all of this. There is a role for Māori as tangata whenua and guardians of the sea. There is a role for the Crown, which is entrusted with overseeing New Zealand’s assets for all New Zealanders. And there is a role for those of us who go fishing, whether we are commercial or recreational.

Scott Macindoe is a spokesman for LegaSea, a group that advocates for recreational fishing.