by frog
Last night I went to see Whetu rere – the sea lion and the comet at the Reel Earth Film Festival. It’s about the first sea lion mum to give birth to a pup on the New Zealand mainland since our ancestors drove them away.
On the Otago coast, something extraordinary is happening. The world’s rarest sea lion species has begun a tentative comeback to the mainland of New Zealand. Just one exceptional female is pioneering her species’ historic return… The film follows Mum’s latest pup, whose life is filled with challenges and adversity. From hungry stray dogs to losing his mother, the pup’s journey reminds us how tenuous and fragile life is for this species.
The film doesn’t go into the politics of protecting sea lions from the squid fishery, but the Minister of Fisheries is soon to be faced with a decision on how many will be sacrificed this year.
The Ministry of Fisheries is consulting on it at the moment, and recommending a toll in the range of 50-92 sea lions. They call it the Fishing Related Mortality Limit (FRML): it’s modelled on current research about how many sea lions are caught in the average squid trawl tow, and when the limit is reached, the fishery is closed for the rest of the season. MFish leaves the decision to the Minister: he can act with caution or be cavalier.
This year is not a normal year though. Last summer the pup population nose-dived, by nearly a third.
We know that many of the fishing-related casualties are mums who are either pregnant or feeding for their pups, and the pups will starve if mum doesn’t return. Scientists are not sure what was the cause of the pup slump last season, but for the purpose of setting the FRML it doesn’t matter – the FRML should take account of the fact that every mum lost in a net is a number of pups that will not be born.
It’s about acting with precaution. It’s about killing fewer than last season. Better to lose some earnings from squid than cause the world’s most endangered sea lion, our own, declining further towards extinction.
One shortcoming of the Fisheries Act is that Ministers commonly faced a legal challenge if they make decisions that are precautionary. One previous Minister, Jim Anderton, introduced a Bill to fix this, but it lacked support from the then-Government’s support parties. Metiria Turei has resurrected this Bill and has submitted it in the Members’ bill ballot.
The Government rejected previous attempts to fix our marine protection laws to save the sea lions. Will they at least put the precautionary principle into the law?
Need more convincing? Watch this:
Published in Environment & Resource Management by frog on Mon, October 12th, 2009
Tags: conservation, Fisheries Act 1996, Metiria Turei, Minister of fisheries, sea lion, Squid, subantarctic, trawling
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
One wonders how the green party will advocate this issue. Will this problem be framed as yet another large mammal integrally associated with kiwi-identity facing extinction because of our actions, requiring only a small tweaking of policy catch limits (as this posting seems to suggest)? Or will the problem be framed as our capitalist growth/consumption lifestyle which commits all natural resources to human consumption, pushing another species to the brink of extinction, and therefore requiring a fundamental shift in our views on growth and consumption? The second message is defiantly not as easy as the first to articulate, but I would argue that it is really the only authentic stance to take. By publically obfuscating the problem, framing this issue as just yet another species requiring a small policy change, the Greens may be doing more damage than good in truly stopping planetary genocide.
Like or Dislike:
1 
2 (-1)
So, I think your comment is overly cynical, but your point is fair. It’s a perrenial tension in all progressive politics – incrementalism v paradigm shift; pragmatism v idealism. I think it is almost always a combination of both that is required to effect meaningful and urgent change.
Like or Dislike:
3 
0 (+3)