Briefing Paper to New Ministers
1 7 January 2024
Hon Shane Jones
Minister for Oceans and Fisheries
Email: Shane.Jones@parliament.govt.nz
Hon Todd McClay
Minister for Hunting and Fishing
Email: Todd.McClay@parliament.govt.nz
Hon Mark Patterson
Minister for Rural Communities
Email: Mark.PattersonMP@parliament.govt.nz
Dear Ministers Jones, McClay and Patterson,
On behalf of Fish Mainland Inc, I would like to congratulate you on your Oceans and Fisheries, Hunting and Fishing, and Rural Communities portfolios, respectively.
As you know, kiwis hold the ocean environment and fisheries resources in high regard. Many are passionate about their public right to fish and sustaining the environment and resources for future generations.
Fish Mainland acknowledges the dependence that many communities have on local fisheries as a source of food. We also acknowledge the importance of commercial fishing as a source of food for non-fishers and fishers alike.
Fish Mainland is a not-for-profit organisation incorporated in 2020 and recognised as a charity in 2021. Our purpose is to coordinate and assist the South Island marine fishing community in restoring and sustaining fisheries resources for the benefit of all who fish in South Island waters.
Background
In 2019, a group of South Islanders explored the establishment of an organisation to represent their marine recreational fishing interests to Government and others.
Fish Mainland’s formation arose out of the realisation that an unorganised recreational fishing sector will be increasingly ignored and disadvantaged, while the commercial fishing sector and Māori fishing interests continue to advance organisational arrangements to represent their interests.
A 2019 article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences concluded this same dynamic is occurring worldwide. The authors asserted that for too long, Governments around the world have ignored the importance and impact of recreational fisheries Governing the recreational dimension of global fisheries (pnas.org)
The authors also asserted that recreational fisheries are a relevant and valuable component of regional, national, and global fisheries and in many areas need better governance and management.
Furthermore, Governments must rethink management objectives and shift away from the poor incentives created by one-size-fits-all regulations for managing recreational fisheries. They offered pragmatic steps for rethinking objectives, including:
Recreational fishers must be better organised and involved in management processes. Incentives need to be structured for these organisations to be proactive, forward-looking, and cooperative.
Management approaches should be tailored for local needs and provide a degree of self-regulation for recreational fishers.
Recreational fishers should report their catch and effort to improve fish stock assessments and avoid stock declines that can occur unnoticed.
Mainland Catch
Fish Mainland’s role includes organising South Island recreational fishers’ interests and taking steps towards improving the management of fisheries and the environment. The first step is collecting better data on recreational catch and effort.
The benefit for fishers is that better data informs management decision-making, including substantiating the importance of a fishery for recreational use, and preferred fishing grounds, or reducing environment impacts that benefit all sectors.
Several South Island recreational fishers, fishing clubs and other groups, including the Guardians of Fiordland and Kaikoura, have highlighted the value they place on collecting more information and with greater frequency to gain a better understanding of localised trends in abundance, size distribution and availability of fish stocks that are important to recreational fishers.
The former Government also acknowledged these benefits, first in relation to development of a strategy for managing the blue cod fishery. The strategy included the intention to better inform management decision-making via a traffic light system (e.g. colours change as available information suggests the state of each blue cod fishery zone is improving or declining). However, the strategy did not specify the information needed to legitimise colour changes across any of the zones.
Fish Mainland considered the veracity of the colour changes would be critical to gaining recreational fisher buy-in for the traffic light system. An effective way to gain buy-in is through citizen science (e.g. self-reporting).
With funding from the Ministry for Primary Industries’ (MPI) Sustainable Food & Fibre Futures programme, Fish Mainland has collaborated with Datacom in developing a recreational fisher self-reporting system.
The data is collected via a mobile app, appropriately named Mainland Catch. It is an intuitive and simple app for fishers to use on their fishing trips.
Mainland Catch is designed like the longstanding voluntary arrangements for catch-per-unit-effort data collected by the commercial rock lobster fishers. Over time, these voluntary arrangements have continued to improve so that the data provided have become integral to stock assessments.
We anticipate that Mainland Catch will provide valuable data for management and compliance purposes and at a considerably lower cost compared to other recreational data collection methods.
Currently, Mainland Catch is being redeveloped using tools that simplify its roll out to both iOS and Android platforms. This redevelopment will provide an improved user interface for creating trips, adding fishers, and recording catches while also providing both light and dark modes to improve usability in bright sunlight conditions while at sea.
The new version of Mainland Catch, to be released in March 2024, will also improve performance and responsiveness, and enable the secure capture and retention of catch and effort data to allow detailed reporting to MPI on several fisheries that are important to recreational fishers. It will also support reporting in both English and Te Reo languages www.fishmainland.nz
Fish Mainland’s structure
Fish Mainland is a Member-based organisation. Our Members have democratic control over Fish Mainland through the power to nominate, elect and remove five Regional Directors of the Board. Also, the South Island Mandated Iwi Organisations can appoint and remove two other Directors. Fish Mainland also has a Board-based control component in that the Board appoints two other Directors and an independent Chair of the Board.
Elected and appointed Directors of the Board demonstrate Fish Mainland’s mandate to represent recreational fishers. This mandate was confirmed during Fish Mainland’s first Annual General Meeting when Directors were appointed. They act as the go-to people for regional and Island-wide recreational fisheries issues.
We survey our Members when they sign up. The survey results show that our Members’ top three interests in or concerns about marine fisheries around the South Island and Stewart Island are:
Supporting recreational fishing as a valuable and integral component of the South Island culture,
Establishing recreational fishers as respected partners in the stewardship of the South Island marine environment and fisheries resources, and
Recognising New Zealanders' right to access a reasonable share of fisheries resources.
These same interests are priorities set out in our South Island Recreational Fisheries Policy South Island Recreational Fisheries Policy - Fish Mainland
The purpose of this Policy is to guide and coordinate the actions of the South Island recreational fishing sector, the Crown, Iwi, other fishing sectors and interests in realising opportunities and meeting the challenges facing the recreational sector in shared fisheries.
The benefits of a fully functioning, professional Fish Mainland are apparent not only to many individual fishers and fishing clubs, but also other organisations such as the Marine Guardians of Fiordland and Kaikoura.
Fish Mainland also has the support of all nine South Island Iwi, the Paua Industry Council, the CRA5 Canterbury Marlborough Commercial Rock Lobster Stakeholder Group, the CRA7 Otago Rock Lobster Industry Association, the CRA8 Rock Lobster Industry Association and the Southern Inshore Fisheries Management Company.
As early as 2019, the Commercial Fishing Forum, which comprises commercial fishing interests on a national scale, supported Fish Mainland’s establishment. More recently, the Southern Inshore Fishing Forum has enquired whether Fish Mainland is interested in joining the Forum. We are interested in joining.
The primary reason for this unprecedented level of support is the recognition that the recreational voice is the missing link in addressing the inevitable challenges in shared fisheries.
With Fish Mainland established as intended, the Government, Iwi and the other fishing sectors and interests know who to go to, and with the assurance that Fish Mainland will work respectfully and collaboratively with them to find workable solutions that provide the best public outcomes.
Unfortunately, the former Government did not prioritise funding for Fish Mainland’s operations beyond development of Mainland Catch.
We respectfully request that you and your officials turn attention towards a cooperative assessment of how best to ensure Fish Mainland functions fully as intended.
This would require your officials’ cooperation in assessing the value placed on the services we can deliver and how best to fund them, as set out in our 5-year Business Plan Options for funding Fish Mainland - Fish Mainland These services include:
Effective professional representation of recreational fishing interests,
Provision of professional advice to the Government on proposals and issues that may affect recreational fishing,
Communication and consultation on management and implementation of strategic Government priorities and projects,
Demonstrated leadership in processes that assist you to resolve issues associated with shared fisheries, limiting the need for political intervention, where possible; this service includes ways to provide information on recreational fishing to improve management decision making, and
Assist Government to provide research and education that raises the profile and awareness of issues of common priority.
Fish Mainland priorities
In line with the above services, our Members have confirmed what should be our priorities, summarised as follows:
First, regulations enacted in 2021 for recreational blue cod management caused some unintended consequences for fishers:
blue cod is the only fishery that requires fishers to land their catch in a measurable state. This requirement ceased the longstanding practice of filleting blue cod at sea and created waste-related problems when fishers fillet and discard carcases on the beach.
fishers cannot transit through a zone with blue cod on board that was caught in another zone with a higher daily bag limit. This requirement can lead to safety concerns for launching and retrieving boats, along with avoidable compliance problems.
The cause of these consequences is solely due to officials having failed to think through regulatory implementation and without the benefit of public consultation.
We respectfully request financial support for our efforts in continuing to work with officials to ensure fair and reasonable regulatory amendments are made, while promoting Mainland Catch as the best means of demonstrating the location of blue cod catch for compliance purposes.
Second, regulations enacted in 2020 led to a near complete ban on recreational set-netting in South Island waters, even in inland waters where recreational fishers’ families have fished for over 100 years without ever seeing Hector’s and Maui dolphins.
The policy basis for the regulations is the Dolphin Threat Management Plan (TMP) that was first developed in 2008, with the Maui dolphin component reviewed in 2012. In 2019, the TMP was revised to include proposals on managing impacts of fishing on Hector’s and Maui dolphins, addressing the threat that toxoplasmosis poses for dolphins, and managing other non-fishing threats.
Public consultation then occurred mid-2019 on a range of options to manage human-induced threats that dolphins face. Suffice it to say, some of the supporting information and rationale were contentious, including the lack of information to estimate the alleged risk posed by recreational fishers.
In mid-2020, the Ministers of Fisheries and Conservation announced their decision to implement a more extensive ban on set netting in South Island waters. However, most local set netters were unaware of the proposed set net ban or that consultation had occurred mid-2019. For many, the announced ban came as a complete surprise.
At that time, Fish Mainland proposed that MPI officials hold a meeting in Motueka to hear first-hand local fishers’ concerns and proposed solutions that would allow set netting in certain inland waterways without posing any risk of incidentally killing or seriously injuring Hector’s or Maui dolphins.
MPI officials declined to meet fishers while asserting “We consider that there was sufficient notice and opportunity for fishers and interested stakeholders to input their views on the proposals”. Officials then referred to the documents that formed the basis for the Ministers’ decision.
However, the document titled, Protecting Hector’s and Maui Dolphins: Supporting Information and Rationale, makes clear that regarding Golden and Tasman Bays, there is no information about the risk mitigated by extending the ban into the Bays’ estuaries, rivers, lagoons and inlets.
This dearth of information meant that the risk management options proposed to Ministers were scientifically baseless, particularly in relation to imposing the set net ban in the Waimea Estuary, Moutere Inlet, and other inland waterways where dolphins had not been seen.
To be clear, Fish Mainland fully supports applying the set net ban where netting poses a risk to incidentally killing or seriously injuring Hector’s or Maui Dolphins. And we do not object to the ban applying in Golden and Tasman Bays, despite the dearth of supporting evidence. On behalf of local set netters, we object to the ban applied to the longstanding netting areas of inland waterways without any justification whatsoever.
The only recourse left available was for Fish Mainland to lodge a complaint to the Parliamentary Regulations Review Committee, which decided that our complaint did not meet the threshold for investigation, even in relation to the consultation process, which the Committee referred to as ‘extensive.’
We beg to differ, since the voices of the fishers most impacted were not heard prior to the decision to enact the ban. A factor worth noting is that set netting is generally undertaken by older age groups who are far less inclined to access the media channels that Government officials use.
We respectfully request that you re-consider the relevance, and the precedence set, in having a regulatory set net ban over inland waterways where dolphins have not been seen.
Third, the former Government’s 5 October 2023 announcement to establish marine protected areas (MPAs) along the Otago and Catlin coasts, after three years of silence, was a real blow to recreational and commercial fishers alike.
It was the consequence of a $4 million, multi-year, Department of Conservation-led (DOC) process that had little regard for local community concerns:
DOC held its last public meeting on MPA planning in 2017 in Owaka (the Catlins). Locals were so incensed by the lack of substantive arguments for locking up longstanding fishing grounds that several expected a police presence was needed.
DOC ceased holding public meetings and selectively chose members of a MPA planning forum. No one represented local recreational fishing interests. To control behaviour and the process, DOC muzzled the forum members.
Public input was limited to formal consultation, last held in 2020, that was stacked in favour of DOC and like-minded non-government organisations that fully utilised media channels to pad the number of submissions in support of MPAs, despite most submitters outside the region having no understanding of local communities’ situations.
The purpose was to focus Ministerial communications once again into a numbers game, those in support versus those objecting, with the latter communicated without the detail and emotion behind real local concerns.
It was apparent that DOC did behind-the-scenes deals with Ngai Tahu to gain their support for the MPAs. Their support came through their agreed access to MPAs and ‘co-management’ of them. We had no forewarning of such agreements, nor much in the way of subsequent explanation. Also, the boundaries for Type-2 MPAs have not been explained.
The public should have been fully informed of such material changes and provided opportunities to express their views; it is unacceptable that the former Government had such disregard for natural justice and due process.
In summary, we respectfully request that you consider nullifying the former Ministers’ decisions on Southeast MPAs and consider actions based on the 2019 review by the Office of the Controller and Auditor-General (OAG) of the 2005 Policy basis for MPA planning https://www.oag.parliament.nz/2019/marine-environment
Some OAG review conclusions are summarised as follows:
Policy guidelines for MPAs are too restrictive, thus limiting the available protection.
Fish Mainland has consistently raised similar concerns about the narrow definition of MPAs used to substantiate DOC’s ongoing assertions that New Zealand has inadequate marine protection.
For example, the 2005 Policy was designed to avoid counting the protection available within customary fishing areas (e.g., mātaitai reserves) and other forms of protection under fisheries legislation.
The 2005 MPA Policy is also out of step with increasing interest worldwide in alternatives to establishing no-take MPAs in perpetuity, and instead use a range of biodiversity protection and management measures, such as the protected area categories developed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature https://www.iucn.org/theme/protected-areas/about/protected-area-categories
If the IUCN categories were used, New Zealand would be a world leader in marine protection.
The MPA Policy does not allow a MPA planning forum “to be diverted by RMA, aquaculture, or fisheries management matters.” The OAG states:
“However, these matters are important to many New Zealanders. In practice, some of the South-East Forum members did not feel that recommendations to the Ministers could adequately address the concerns of the people they represented. As a consequence, some members’ participation and confidence in the South-East Forum was undermined, contributing to the creation of factions in the South-East Forum that appeared, at times, to operate in an adversarial way.”
“I encourage the Department of Conservation and the Ministry for Primary Industries, as the stewards of an important natural resource, to consider how any reform to marine biodiversity protection legislation, policy, or planning could support greater collaboration between parties, and ultimately protect New Zealand’s unique marine biodiversity in a more effective way.”
Fish Mainland continues to work collaboratively with the other fishing sectors and interests for the best public outcomes. However, we consider your direction to officials is needed before we can collectively work towards adopting new ways of engaging on marine protection that are transparent, fair and reasonable and, therefore, avoid such unsatisfactory and costly outcomes.
Finally, we would be grateful to be able to meet with all of you to further discuss our near-term priorities and the best means of funding the Fish Mainland services that we trust you value. We look forward to receiving your responses.
Yours sincerely,
Larnce Wichman NZOM
Chair of the Board
027 224 6683
