ACHIEVING OUTCOMES

The following information outlines the Ministry’s progress, against these three contributing outcomes, towards our central goal. It details specific examples and highlights from the Ministry’s work in the past year. The section commences with an international perspective, then outlines the management of New Zealand’s fisheries, and concludes with the capability of the Ministry.

International Fisheries Issues

The Ministry works collaboratively with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) to develop a New Zealand position for negotiations within Regional Fisheries Management Organisations and in multi-lateral forums, such as the World Trade Organization and the United Nations.

Our international team work hard to ensure that the legal framework that New Zealand applies, both inside and outside our EEZ, complies with international law. They also work to maximise the economic return that New Zealand gets from fisheries outside the EEZ.

Increasingly our industry is looking for opportunities beyond New Zealand. Sixty-five percent of all Sealord seafood is now sourced from outside New Zealand waters. One of the most profitable fisheries for New Zealand’s seafood industry is the harvesting of Antarctic toothfish. There is a need, therefore, to ensure that there are strong co-operative arrangements in place that create and maintain rules and responsibilities around fishing in the high seas.

Developing governance arrangements in the South Pacific

A core obligation within the Law of the Sea² is to co-operate with other states that share an interest in a fisheries resource. To do this effectively we must work together to create strong rules and frameworks. As a small nation we can’t achieve compliance by force, so we benefit greatly from working collaboratively with other nations to establish a level playing field.

In recent years New Zealand has worked with other States to negotiate a new Regional Fisheries Management Organisation for the high seas – the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organisation (SPRFMO). SPFRMO covers the vast ocean area between the most eastern part of the South Indian Ocean, through the Pacific and toward the EEZ’s of South America. New Zealand and other nations have a legal obligation to protect the fisheries and biodiversity in this area, and to assist with effective management of the eco-system.

Specifically, SPFRMO is being set up to manage and conserve non-tuna fisheries³ in the high seas area of the South Pacific Ocean and is currently negotiating Convention text that will form the legal basis for this.

As part of this work, New Zealand representatives from MFish and MFAT have continued negotiations with more than 20 nation states on new international measures for the management of bottom trawling on the high seas of the South Pacific. An interim SPRFMO secretariat has also been established in Wellington, New Zealand.

To date, SPRFMO has agreed to implement a set of interim conservation and management measures to effectively conserve and manage this vast marine area. These measures are designed to ensure that fishing activity on the high seas of the South Pacific Ocean does not increase from current levels and that significant adverse impacts on vulnerable marine ecosystems including seamounts, hydrothermal vents, coldwater corals and sponge fields are avoided.

Part of New Zealand’s response to our international commitment with SPRFMO was the introduction of new high seas fishing permit conditions on 1 May 2008. These conditions manage the impacts of New Zealand’s bottom trawling act gs were held with stakeholders during the past year on the development of the new high seas permit conditions prior to implementation.

Combating illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing

Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing is a serious global problem. It undermines international, regional and national efforts to conserve and manage fisheries. The value of IUU fishing in the Pacific alone is estimated to be NZ$500 million a year.

IUU takes place over a vast and difficult to monitor geographic area. If there is to be effective prevention, deterrence and elimination of the problem, countries need to work together through good governance structures and coordinated compliance regimes.

New Zealand is very supportive of, and is actively participating in, the development of measures and arrangements to combat IUU fishing internationally.

Through involvement in RFMOs the Ministry is working to strengthen governance arrangements and improve overall performance and measures to address IUU fishing. We are working with other States to close governance gaps in the South Pacific through the establishment of SPRFMO.

Working with our Pacific neighbours

Working with Pacific Island countries to effectively manage the fisheries resources of the Pacific is a key priority for New Zealand. This includes work with the Forum Fisheries Agency which was set up primarily to assist Pacific Island countries to collectively manage the valuable tuna species that migrate through their EEZs, and to encourage active participation in the negotiations of the Western Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC).

The WCPFC is the RFMO covering tuna and other highly migratory species in the western and central Pacific Ocean. This arrangement has proven particularly challenging due to the intense competition for fish between established fishing nations and the wide range of small Pacific Island developing states within the area, where fish stocks (particularly tuna) are one of their few economic opportunities for development.

The Ministry aims not just to promote sound governance and sustainable fisheries management of these tuna stocks, but to assist these countries to build the capability to manage and develop their fisheries effectively.

3. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, concluded in 1982, sets out a comprehensive regime for the law of the sea, covering such matters as territorial sea limits, navigational rights, the legal regime for the 200 nautical mile wide exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and the continental shelf, the high seas and the legal status of resources of the deep seabed outside the limits of any nation’s jurisdiction, passage of ships through narrow straits, conservation and management of fisheries, the protection and preservation of the marine environment, marine scientific research, the transfer of marine technology and dispute settlement procedures. (Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade website, 2008.)

4. Highly migratory fish stocks, including tuna, in the Pacific are managed by separate RFMOs, of which New Zealand is a member of the Western Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) and the Convention for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna (CCSBT).