Recreational data – the missing link in managing shared fisheries

An article in the February issue of the Seafood magazine, The recreational catch – blunt views from a master fisher, showed how the Tindale Marine Research Charitable Trust is using citizen science to educate recreational fishers and improve shared fisheries. It highlighted other ways that citizen science can be used for these same purposes and for the benefit of all sectors. Dr RANDALL BESS reports.

Globally, there is increasing recognition that, for too long, the considerable importance and effects of recreational fishing have been ignored. With this recognition comes growing awareness that policy makers and fisheries managers should address their recreational fishing sectors by rethinking management objectives.1

Those who have been involved in New Zealand’s fisheries can readily recognise that successive governments’ objectives have focused predominately on commercial fisheries and settling Treaty-based claims to fisheries resources. These objectives include clarifying roles and involvement in management processes and developing organisations to represent their interests.

However, the public right to fish has remained poorly defined compared to the rights associated with quota holdings and Maori customary fishing rights. There is increasing recognition that recreational fishing is too important to be continually ignored and disadvantaged.

Fish Mainland Inc was recently established to fill the void caused by there being no effective voice for South Island recreational fishers. Effective, professional representation of recreational fishing interests is needed to address the imbalance in management objectives and inevitable problems in shared fisheries.

The reason is that sources of inter-sectoral tensions and conflicts, if allowed to worsen, could adversely affect the management of fisheries to the detriment of all fishing sectors. Fish Mainland is well supported due to the realisation amongst the South Island fishing sectors that they are better off cooperating to improve fisheries than continuing to be rivals.

A primary concern of Fish Mainland and its supporters is the dearth of data on recreational fishing. Data is currently collected via the expensive and infrequent National Panel Survey (NPS) and a few other research methodologies. Their overall aim is to estimate total catch. While the NPS and other methodologies provide valuable data, there are challenges in their use, particularly in several South Island fisheries.

Blue cod is the largest shared fishery in South Island waters. It is the most popular recreational fishery and so a significant portion of fishers’ annual expenditure can be directly attributed to it. The estimated annual value of the South Island commercial fishery is $6.5 million. It also holds significant value for Maori customary fishers.

More reliable, fine-scale recreational fishing data is the missing link to improving the management of this iconic fishery. For this purpose, Fish Mainland is working with Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) officials to develop what they consider to be the next step in the evolution of the National Blue Cod Strategy.

While the Strategy introduced a traffic light system (e.g., colours change as available data suggest the state of the fishery is improving or declining), it did not specify the data needed to legitimise colour changes across management areas.

The veracity of any colour changes and associated changes to bag limits, will 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).

Fish Mainland applied to MPI’s Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures fund to provide financial support to develop and implement a system for recreational fishers to self-report their data on targeted blue cod and bycatch in South Island waters.

The application was approved. The system will collect data that provide broad signals, or indicator statistics, regarding trends in catch and effort, as do potting surveys, that will help legitimise colour changes.

Fish Mainland director Alan Key has been involved in the blue cod fishery for over 30 years. During that time, there has been untold amounts of discussions but no real action outside of Fiordland, he says.

“What Fish Mainland is doing with MPI is the most comprehensive change I have seen to date. There is no question, better data is the basis to improving the management of this fishery,” Key says.

“Besides, the self-reporting system provides the opportunity to address some of the ‘unintended consequences’ of the Blue Cod Strategy, namely problems arising from landing blue cod in a measurable state and the inability to transit through an area with a larger bag limit taken in another area.”

Key says that once the teething problems in the blue cod fishery are addressed, the self-reporting system could be expanded into other South Island fisheries.

“The real value in this system will be our ability to share data, which will further entice all sectors to work together.”

1 https://sustainablefisheries-uw.org/managing-recreational-alongside-commercial/?fbclid=IwAR3PeJffMfOVY7jViR175kz6gQtQz1cdnL119B-e-rMNZ9HSeJTCroOtpnw

View the original article in Seafood New Zealand magazine, pp.18-19 April 2021