Maps of commercial inshore fishing activity
From here you can download maps showing where some, but not all, commercial inshore fishing has occurred in the last few years, and locate important fishing grounds.
The maps show fishing activity for those fishing methods that report at a fine scale – at this stage only trawl, line, and net. Note that not all fishing by these three methods is fully captured by the maps. (see note 2 below).
Maps by fishing method:
Trawl fishing maps
Line fishing maps
Net fishing maps
Important Notes:
- Commercial fishing statistics are shown by position where fishing events started, grouped within a 1 nautical mile grid cell, and averaged for three fishing years 1 October 2007 to 30 September 2010. They will be updated annually.
- These maps only include those events with reported coordinates of fishing position. This includes:
- about 33% of netting events (netting includes set and drift netting and pair set netting);
- over 70% of lining events (lining here includes surface and bottom lines and trot lining); and
- almost 100% of trawl events (includes bottom and midwater and single and pair trawling).
- Vessels below 6 metres are not required to report their fishing position by coordinates.
- Catch values are based on estimated catch of only the main species caught so are only indicative of the actual amount of fish landed.
- Statistics for all commercial fishing events, and other fishing methods, are available grouped to statistical areas from the NABIS website www.nabis.govt.nz. Maps showing available information on non-commercial fishing are also available on NABIS.
Aquaculture and coastal planning
New aquaculture developments should be sited to avoid conflict with important inshore fishing grounds.
Aquaculture applicants are advised to contact commercial fishing organisations to find out more about fishing in any specific area of interest. A starting point for contacting fishing representatives is The New Zealand Seafood Industry Council (SeaFIC).