September 16, 2025
You know you must be getting close to the truth when officials propose to change the law to reduce accountability. So it is with crayfish. After losing a string of court cases challenging recent Ministerial decisions, Shane Jones has arbitrarily decided to amend the Fisheries Act to severely limit the public’s time and ability to ... Read more.
September 16, 2025
Years of ineffective management have contributed to the depletion of crayfish populations along Northland’s east coast known as the CRA 1 fishery. Now at crisis point, the depletion can no longer be ignored. Fisheries NZ has proposed a range of management measures to address the depletion. These will affect commercial and recreational fishing for red ... Read more.
September 16, 2025
Crayfish numbers in areas across the Hauraki Gulf, Bay of Plenty and Coromandel are depleted. In response, Fisheries NZ has proposed drastic management measures that could impact the Kiwi summer you’ve been dreaming about all winter. FNZ proposals include a closure to crayfish harvesting in east Northland, and extending that closure to include the coastline ... Read more.
September 1, 2025
Scallop season once opened on 1 September in Coromandel. Today, the date is a stark reminder of what has been lost. Decades of mismanagement, overallocation, and the destructive use of Victorian box dredges drove the Coromandel scallop fishery to collapse. It was only after sustained pressure from the local community, led by Ngāti Hei, that ... Read more.
September 1, 2025
Scallop season once opened on 1 September in the Coromandel. Today, the date is a stark reminder of what has been lost. Decades of mismanagement, overallocation, and the destructive use of Victorian box dredges drove the Coromandel scallop fishery to collapse. It was only after sustained pressure from the local community, led by Ngāti Hei, ... Read more.
August 27, 2025
From Mahurangi Matters, August 2025. There was a time when packs of crayfish marched in their thousands from East Cape up the northeast coast. The seafloor hidden beneath a moving mass of antennas and limbs – a magnificent sight. Today these marches are rare. Instead, red rock lobster populations across east Northland are at crisis ... Read more.
August 27, 2025
Thank you to everyone who answered the call in our last email. Together, we raised close to $10,000 to fuel the fight for our fish. That show of support was powerful – it tells us that thousands of Kiwis are ready to stand up against a system designed to protect industrial fishing interests at the ... Read more.
August 7, 2025
In April, over 25,000 of you made it pretty clear via our submission form that you did not want the proposed ‘reforms’ to the Fisheries Act to go ahead. Unfortunately, your voices have been ignored. In an unsurprising turn of events, Shane Jones announced today that the government has agreed to his “reforms”, and will ... Read more.
August 6, 2025
Public consultation is one of the few times that everyday New Zealanders can have a say on the future management of our fisheries. It’s also when our team at LegaSea, the New Zealand Sport Fishing Council and representative organisations pull together decades of knowledge, science and lived experience to advocate for more fish in the ... Read more.
July 30, 2025
Published in The Adventurer Magazine Jack Mackerel – those slippery little fish you chuck on your hook as bait to catch something bigger – are far more important than they’re given credit for. These so-called baitfish are a fundamental food source for larger predatory fish, marine mammals and seabirds. Without them, our coastal ecosystems begin ... Read more.
