September 21, 2016
Leaked documents show the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) has been aware of widespread fish dumping for years yet not acted to prosecute the offending commercial fishers. These papers highlight deeply rooted problems with the management of fisheries. Now recreational fishing and environmental interests are calling for a Commission of Inquiry into the Quota Management […]
September 16, 2016
The Heron Report into why the Ministry for Primary Industries did not prosecute fish dumping paints a picture of an incompetence. The Report, which follows revelations that the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) has filmed fishing boats engaging in illegal activity over a period of several years, says the decision not to prosecute was “flawed” […]
September 16, 2016
Welcome to the FryUp – a regular look back at the week of fishing in the news. It’s official. It’s all our fault. That’s right – never mind the trawlers, the overfishing and the dumping. Apparently the biggest risk to our fisheries future is recreational fishers and we need to regulate them at once. That’s […]
September 9, 2016
Welcome to the FryUp – a regular look back at the week of fishing in the news. Crayfish ‘functionally extinct’ Crayfish numbers in the Hauraki Gulf have dropped to such a low level they’ve now being called “functionally extinct” by the director of a research marine ecology consultancy company eCoast, Dr Tim Haggitt. Haggitt and […]
September 2, 2016
Welcome to the FryUp – a regular look back at the week of fishing in the news. Quality over quantity The Quota Management System (QMS) is either world class and the envy of other countries or it’s a con, perpetuated on a people who would have had the wool pulled over their eyes. According to […]
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 […]
