Changing Course - Towards Fisheries 2010

• Preface by Chief Executive
• Nature's limits: The challenge
• Net gains: The change of course
• Fisheries 2010: The twelve founding principles
• Guardianship: Our children's future
• Foresight for the future: Strategic issues
• Our common future: Working with stakeholders
• Next steps for the Ministry: Where to from here?
• Project 2010
• Conclusion
• Glossary

Copies of this document are available from the Ministry of Fisheries.

Changing Course: Sustainable fisheries in a healthy aquatic ecosystem

Foresight for the future: Strategic issues for the Ministry

Towards Fisheries 2010

As it embarks on the development of Fisheries 2010, the Ministry comes up against a paradox. How does the government agency charged with ensuring the health and well-being of the nation's fisheries continue to do so, while at the same time help to maximise interests among competing claims?

Shaping a consensus among stakeholders on the need for an ecosystem based management approach using the principles explored in this document will help resolve this paradox. Without agreement on a common direction, there is likely to be increasing conflict among stakeholders contributing to undesirable environmental outcomes.

A new Ministry - a new role

Formerly part of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, the new Ministry of Fisheries was established on 1 July 1995. It is New Zealand's first government agency to have sustainable utilisation of fisheries as its primary focus.

The Minister of Fisheries and the Government are responsible for ensuring the health and well-being of New Zealand's fisheries, and the Ministry is their chief adviser. Its role is to lead and facilitate an approach to managing fisheries - encouraging fishery users to support good, long-term ecological management practices, and assisting in the protection of fishing rights.

Since its establishment, the Ministry has recognised the significance of working with stakeholders. Success in leading the effort towards achieving healthy fisheries depends on the Ministry's ability to gain the respect, cooperation and support of all stakeholders.

Establishing a leadership role

The Ministry will take the lead to build and maintain a common understanding within the community and among stakeholders as to what must be achieved for healthy fisheries. This means leading the development of the ways in which that understanding and consensus can be achieved.

Its Maori name, Te Tautiaki i nga tini a Tangaroa, means the guardian of the multitudes of Tangaroa. In describing the Ministry's role and responsibility as guarding not just the fish, but the whole aquatic ecosystem, its Maori name accurately sums up what the Ministry is all about.

The Ministry will lead the process of developing the stakeholder consensus for healthy fisheries. It will then take responsibility for maintaining and safeguarding that consensus. Through the Fisheries 2010 process, it will collaborate with stakeholders to establish the management goals for the fishery and how to achieve them.