The health of the aquatic environment is protected

Role of fisheries managers

If the aquatic environment is to produce value for current and future generations the ecosystem must remain healthy. We need to understand its nature (composition, diversity, stability, productivity) and extent of the resources we are managing and how ecosystems work. Fisheries managers have a dual role in this outcome. They work with other government agencies to develop better ways of managing the impacts of all human activities affecting the aquatic environment. And they specify limits on fishing activity and develop mechanisms to encourage people to operate within those limits.

Contributing to processes that manage impacts from use of non-fisheries resources

The Ministry cannot directly control non-fishing activities that affect the health of the aquatic environment. The Ministry may, however, help develop new policies and ways of managing human activities that affect the aquatic environment, including non-fishing activities.

The information it has on fishers and aquatic resources may also be useful in setting limits for non-fishing activities. In some cases this requires the Ministry to participate in processes leading to decisions on the management of non-fishing activities.

Providing incentives to improve environmental performance of fisheries

In 2005, the Ministry strengthened its focus on improving the environmental performance of the fisheries sector.

The Ministry wants to achieve this by setting standards and giving stakeholders incentives to develop innovative ways to meet performance standards. Different incentives are used depending on the type of fishery and fishing method.

Specifying limits on fishing activity

Fishing generates benefits for the fisher but affects the aquatic environment. For example, catching fish may lead to the incidental capture of seabirds or disturbance to plant life on part of the seafloor. In each case, effective management requires incentives for fishers to modify their fishing activities to stay within the limits set for levels of effect on the aquatic environment.

To set effective limits the Ministry needs information on different parts of the aquatic environment (eg, fish, birds, seals, habitat) and the risks to them resulting from fishing. The high cost of getting good information on aquatic ecosystems means that decisions often need to be made with limited information.

Ensuring environmental standards are met

Compliance involves a combination of incentives and penalties. An effective compliance regime achieves the desirable level of compliance; an efficient one achieves that goal at least cost. Since self-control is the cheapest form of enforcement, any compliance regime should endeavour to obtain the desirable level through voluntary compliance wherever practical.

Education and information may encourage fishers to keep within limits, but penalties will always be needed to ensure some standards are met. Currently the majority of penalties are provided by the Courts, (usually fines) imposed after conviction.

The table on the following page sets out the Ministry's role in achieving this contributing outcome and the work that we will do over the next few years to get to that point.

The right side of the table indicates which outputs in the output plan later in this SOI will have responsibility for undertaking the specific work elements involved in the programme to support achievement of the outcomes.