August 31, 2016
The opinion piece in Monday’s Dominion Post (We’re catching fish but not value: why the QMS needs reforming) is critical of New Zealand’s Quota Management System (QMS) and with good reason. The academics who authored the piece used the context of a lack of value creation and capture to frame their point. If the New […]
August 26, 2016
Bottom trawling is an indiscriminate method of fishing which has been around for hundreds of years, more or less unchanged. For centuries people worldwide have scoured the sensitive ecosystems from the bottom of the seas. What were once beautiful environments, are now little more than barren wastelands. New Zealand is lucky in that our country […]
August 26, 2016
Welcome to the FryUp – a regular look back at the week of fishing in the news. Slipping through the net? Radio New Zealand has asked the Ministry for Primary Industries about its prosecution rate in light of the damning report from Auckland University into fish dumping. Fewer than 1% of its prosecutions related to […]
August 26, 2016
An Official Information Act request by Radio New Zealand has revealed that less than one percent of all fisheries prosecutions are related to fish dumping. That’s despite evidence showing five out of six industrial fishing boats were dumping fish during Operations Achilles and Hippocamp. Inspectors estimated that crews were dumping anywhere between 20% and 100% […]
August 25, 2016
In June the Ministry for Primary Industries announced exports would need to grow by an average of 9.5 percent per annum if it was to meet its goal of doubling exports by 2025. It is not clear what this means for us, but from a public perspective our inshore fish stocks are already fully exploited […]
August 25, 2016
Many people have been asking why it is so hard to have commercial catch limits reduced. It’s a valid question that deserves a good answer. We need to know how and why the Quota Management System has failed to provide a flexible system despite millions of our taxpayers’ dollars being spent on science, monitoring and […]
August 25, 2016
Misdirected growth targets can have unintended consequences. Our fisheries are still recovering from Government policies implemented 40 years ago. A comprehensive review of the Quota Management System will hopefully reveal areas that can be fixed so our fisheries can be restored to abundant levels. Having enough fish to sustain the environment and provide for people’s […]
August 19, 2016
Welcome to the FryUp – a regular look back at the week of fishing in the news. I’d like to be under the sea… If you, like me, have always wanted to see the Great Barrier Reef in all its technicolor glory, you’d best get in sooner rather than later. This year the Reef suffered […]
August 12, 2016
Welcome to the FryUp – a regular look back at the week of fishing in the news. Scallops It takes something dramatic to happen to get the Ministry for Primary Industries to agree with LegaSea but sadly that’s the point we’ve reached with the Scallop 7 (Marlborough-Tasman area) fishery. Minister Nathan Guy has closed the […]
August 12, 2016
Scallop numbers have declined so much around the top of the South Island that the Minister for Primary Industries, Nathan Guy, has agreed with LegaSea and closed the Scallop 7 fishery until a rebuild occurs. The fishery has been closed for the 2016/17 and new management measures will be worked out between now and July […]
