by Metiria Turei
Dolphin down: it’s not a good look for our international reputation or our tourism industry, let alone our most iconic dolphin. DOC notified on Friday that another Hector’s dolphin has been killed by a commercial fishing vessel with an observer on board:
H182/09 – A Hector’s dolphin capture was reported from a commercial fishing vessel on the east coast of the South island, Friday 8 May 2009. The animal was sent to Massey for necropsy, more details to follow.
This week the High Court is hearing a judicial review of the previous Fisheries Minister’s set of measures to improve protection for Hector’s and Maui Dolphins. As I said at the time they were announced, they went far enough to arrest population decline in some areas, but fell short of guaranteeing the dolphins’ long-term survival. Commercial fishing leaders promptly challenged them, as they have done with many other sustainability measures.
Underlying the problem though are inherent weaknesses in the Fisheries Act and the Marine Mammals Protection Act, and a lack of willingness from Governments to apply the powers that are there. I have a Members Bill ready to go that would strengthen both laws, and we’ll continue to lobby to improve the willingness aspect.
The death reported today was a vessel with an observer. Six deaths were reported in 1997-8 from the observed 89 days out of 351. No deaths were reported from the 262 days without observers: to state the obvious, this was either a statistical anomaly or illustrates the unreliability of voluntary reporting and the importance of observers. In response, the then Minister of Conservation, Dr Nick Smith, said:
What makes me particularly angry is that fishermen have for years failed to report fatalities and denied there was a problem… I remain cynical that fishermen claim there were no deaths during the 262 days when observers were not present.
Earlier this year the previous Minister of Fisheries, Jim Anderton, explained past increases in the observer programme, saying:
I made the decision that more observers were needed on fishing vessels because research showed a very interesting detail: 100% of the reports of by-catches of dolphins and seabirds came from the 4% of vessels that had observers aboard. Reflect on that for a moment: only 4% of boats have observers. They are the only boats that ever report any by-catch of these iconic species.
Yet, the new Minister of Fisheries, Phil Heatley, answered a question from me with this:
703 (2009). Metiria Turei to the Minister of Fisheries (02 Mar 2009): What, if any, evidence has he seen as to the comparative accuracy of quota and bycatch reporting between observed and non-observed boats?
Hon Phil Heatley (Minister of Fisheries) replied: I have not seen any evidence as to the comparative accuracy of quota and bycatch reporting between observed and non-observed boats.
Unfortunately, this year’s Budget trimmed back the observer programme by $1million this year and out-years. As p76 of Vote Fisheries records, this results in “Total number of Observer coverage days delivered” being reduced. This accompanies funding cuts for ‘Fisheries Compliance’ (promoting voluntary compliance with the law and enforcement of illegal activity) and ‘Fisheries Operations’ (advice to set sustainable catch levels and create standards like the Hectors/Maui Management Plan) of about $2million (6-7%) each (pp73-76).
The Greens advocate a sustainable fishing industry that protects jobs and income for New Zealanders into the future. Given the dire record of voluntary reporting, this requires increased observer coverage, but also changes to the way we fish. We can feed ourselves and have a healthy export industry without sacrificing our dolphins.
To steal from a drinking campaign: “It’s not the fishing; it’s how we’re fishing.”
Published in Environment & Resource Management by Metiria Turei on Mon, June 15th, 2009
Tags: Add new tag, fisheries, hectors dolphin, Metiria Turei
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on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
But surely, just as farmers are the true environmentalists of the land, fishermen are the true environmentalists of the sea? Surely?
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And of course it’s not only Hectors dolphin that suffer from the minimal surveillance of commercial fishing operations in NZ waters. NZ sea lions are the most threatened sea lion species on the planet, and yet the government allows dozens to be killed each year in the southern ocean squid fishery.
It’s decisions are based on an impenetrably complex mathematical population model, which is reliant on data from similarly inadequate observation of fishing vessels.
(The NZ sea lion trust has some good info. on sea lions – http://www.sealiontrust.org.nz )
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Eco-bloody-terrorists! Send in the Navy to protect our dolpherts!!!
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and how about that ploughing up of the seabed..eh..?
..and hey..!
..news just in..!
..fish have cenrtal nervous sytems very close/similar to ours…
..so..yes dorothy..!
..fish do feel pain..
..they aren’t gasping in delight..
..eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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my oath Pheel…..cruel business….just imagine being snagged upward by a hook through the mouth….kiss em & put em back it’s still in the Land of the Luds.
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phil – check out the Bluff Oyster Festival and all that sail in her for a glimpse at naked greed at the expense of defenceless organisms. John Key had a gluttonous ol’ time there recently, slurping down those little beauties. As to the sea bed – it’s a benthic catastrophe but Shadbolt promotes the fishery unashamedly. Just thought you’d like to know.
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I am 100% behing the greens on this one. I know exactly what goes on onboard those boats, and they are nothing but a pack of bloody vandals as far as I am concerned.
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and metiria..is your (obviously heartfelt) care for the 8 dolphins..
..and your silence on the millions of fish who suffer the same fate..
..it this ‘cos you eat one..and not the other..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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shadbolt is a carnivorous ignoramus..
..who can’t see past the end of his nose/the next election..
he was once a revolutionary..
now he is a reactionary..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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“its ok to eat fish, cause they don’t have any feelings”
Kurt Cobain
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yeah – he really worked it out…
“The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing:”
John Adams
well it had Jaws innit?
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i always pay heed to the urgings of (suicided) junkie rock stars..
eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Yes philu, drugs ARE bad.
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no shunda..not all..
..and not always..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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why..take just now..for instance…
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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phil! are you nifoc?
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I am with you all tha way Mark, what the hell is our navy doing? Our real enemy is the eco-terrorist within our borders.
Last year I met one of the crewmen on one of the fishing boats working off Timaru who admitted that they practiced drag-net fishing.
I said to him “isn’t that illegal?” he said “apparently it is not”.
I am now asking Metiria why the hell is this practice is not illegal? If these sub-standards are not properly enforced (Metiria has given us the financial cutback figures)in our own waters, then imagine what is going on in International waters?
Something is very serious is afoot here check out the price of tinned fish at you local super market. Two years ago a small tin of tuna (180g?) could be baught for less than a dollar at sale. Now it is getting over $3.00, furthermore they are offering gourmet euphormisms of peppers, capers and beans etc. with a fraction of fish. Yet they sell it as fish.
Please check this out.
Then go and see the film with the late Charlston Heston called “Soylient Green”, then, I think that you will have a very clear picture of where we are heading.
Yours Respectfully
Drakula
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Greenpeace has an interesting article about the unsustainability of our fishing industry.
http://www.greenpeace.org/new-zealand/sos/while-stocks-last
It seems even Matt Watson (ex commercial fisherman and host of the The ITM Fishing Show) thinks we have a serious problem.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0906/S00170.htm
In the meantime the New Zealand Seafood Industry still claims there is nothing wrong and that they are the good guys.
http://www.seafood.co.nz/sp-video
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heh-heh..!..i had to google it..
..but nah..!
..but hey..!..if you want to think/imagine that..?
be my guest..
..eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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The world wide problem with fishing and why fishermen are not “guardians of the sea” in the way that farmers (within the limits of their knowledge) tend to be guardians of the land is the “tragedy of the commons”.
If I have a flock of sheep which I own on land I own then I tend to sustainably manage the flock of sheep and the pasture they feed on.
That is because I own the sheep and the land.
But no one owns the sea and fish in it so every fisherman has an incentive to catch the last fish in the sea because if he doesn’t someone else will.
Worse still the European governments subsidise their fishermen to over fish.
At least we have introduced a regime based on ownership rights which means that fisherman have an incentive not to take the last fish from the sea.
Now the quality of our management is still bound by our limited knowledge and as that gets better so will the management.
Curiously, to work properly property rights must be secure and I have read papers which say that one reason fishermen continue to overfish the stock even when they own a tradeable right is that misguided environmentalists keep threatening to remove the quota schemes. Once your ownership right is uncertain then it may as well not exist.
I have no problem with agitating to improve our knowledge and management but threatening the security of the quota system is totally counterproductive.
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Owen, Do you think share-milkers (who don’t own the land) are inherently bad for the land? Should farmers also own streams/rivers that run through their property? Will this stop them polluting the waterways?
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Owen – I’ve been thinking about this .. a pothole in an unsealed, narrow country road is often fixed by someone living nearby, despite the fact that they don’t own the road. A pothole in a suburban street will almost never be filled by a resident of that street. One in a main highway will be gauranteed to grow bigger and bigger until the roading authority does the work. This supports your ‘Tragedy of the Commons’ argument to a point, but.. my interest is in the fellow no. 1, who does fix the road outside of his house, despite lack of ownership. It’s a matter of scale and sense of ownership. I see this as the way foward.
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The notion of owners protecting a resource only works if it isn’t easy and profitable to move on to another resource when the first one runs out.
Artisan fishers with small, limited range boats restricted to inshore fishing had an incentive to conserve the resource. Large companies can just exhaust one fish stock, put the profits into different quota, buy larger boats or better gear and move on to the next resource. So when the snapper ran out they moved onto orange roughy, fished them down, then moved onto toothfish. This is economically rational within free-market capitalism if you can move your capital into new, more profitable areas of the economy.
There is an incentive to strip mine a resource even if you own it, if when the resource runs out, you can just put your profits into the finance market or whatever and earn more than ever you did exploiting the resource.
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The incentive to strip a mine is that you cannot breed more ore and the ore cannot breed more ore.
This is sustainable management 101.
Actually small artisan fishers deplete stocks because their neighbour will take whatever they can. Have you ever looked at Maori middens and examined the layers of shells getting gradually smaller until there is a barren layer when the tribe move on. Then another layer of large shells forms but is gradually depleted until the tribe moves on again. But their low population and the fertility of the beds meant this was sustainable over the long term. Didn’t work for the moa of course.
Joe
YOur desciption of the large companies has nothing to do with how we manage our fish stocks here – which for all its faults (which we are working on) is regarded as one of the best in the world. OUr managed quota system is not free-market capitalism – it is designed to remedy a fault in the free market which is inevitable if there is no ownership of the resource – meaning you cannot protect your crop or flock from theft or rustling or hunting or whatever you want to call it.
Greenfly, your point about potholes is much more valid and informative but I am off to have a Irish whiskey and a soak in the hot tub and an oxtail stew. Back in the morning.It is an interesting one covered to some extent by “tit for tat”. See Matt Ridley’s the Origins of Virtue.
Fin,
Your share milking question makes no sense as I am sure you know. YOur question about waterways is profound and worthy of serious comment. Back tomorrow.
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So let me get this right, On the West Coast An Absolutely Protected Species Habitat that of the Powelliphanta snails in an Area of Significant Conservation Value is to be Bulldozed by a SOE armed with very expensive lawyers through the Development Court, Oops! That should be the Environment Court.
In Whangamata an Area of Significant Conservation Value has just been turned into a car park and High Density Housing area for the neighbouring Marina development. the developers contractor exterminated a rare and Absolutely Protected Species and its Habitat using lethal chemical sprays under protection of local councils who politely look the other way, and will not prosecute. this was facilitated by using some of the most illustrious lawyers in the land through the Development Court. Oops! I mean the Environment Court.
Now the previous Minister of Fisheries and that department are being taken to the Development Court yet Again because the extermination of Hectors Maui Dolphin could cause the loss of several hundred Jobs?
The number of remaining Maui dolphin is 111. This is perhaps a fitting number for the greatest mass extinction this planet has ever witnessed, though this emergency is being ignored by the vast majority of New Zealanders, who pride themselves on living in a clean green New Zealand.
Long live the Development Court.
Yeah Right.
methinks time for revolution.
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The argument that ownership of such things as cows, sheep, fish or whales gives one an incentive to protect the environment, is to my way of thinking ,seriously flawed. Joe has described the process well.
Fish are still a wild resourse to be plundered and controled evirenments such as fish farms are still have to be researched. It may prove to be a viable alternative to save us from Soylient Green.
A few weeks ago I went onto a site called the “Yess Men” I think that they are based in Philidelphia. They are lefties who dress up as corporate tycoons and infiltrate into the most bizare fraternities of Heyak culture by saying “yes”,”yes” and “yes”. Of course they are wired and camera rigged.
They infiltrated into the inner sanctums of the World Trade Organisation and got talking to a fellow called Heinrick Schmidt who considers himself a bit of an environmentalist.
His solution to the depletion of whales is; If we were to purchase and own a whale (have it registered) Whalers would not be allowed to hunt your whale.
He ingeniously applies the same logic to solve the troubles of the poor states of Africa. When corporates go into those areas they don’t bother much about pay and conditions so after those workers get shafted they end up on the scrap heap.
Solution? Purchase youself an African worker, then you have to be reponsible for him/her for the rest of his/her life.
Anyway that is something to think about.
Yours respectfully
Drak.
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Rational debate now over.
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what about the potholes Owen?
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i am really passionate on fishing. so whoever can help me with sites with information about fishing and how to fish, please post in this thread
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