TOS Regional Recreational Forum - 22 February 2007

Open Meeting & Apologies

Meeting chair, Nathan Glassey (MFish), opened the meeting and welcomed attendees.

Martyn Barlow

John Duncan

Charlie Boulton

Greg Goodall

Ron Prestage

John Waugh

John Williams

Betty McNab

Nathan Glassey

Nikki Pindur

Demelza Turnbull

Christine Bowden

Apologies

Ron Adams

Mark Roden

Introductions

Nathan introduced Christine Bowden and Demelza Turnbill who were going to talk about the AMAs in Golden and Tasman Bay.

Meeting notes

Forum decided they were happy not to review the meeting notes form the meeting 17 August 2006, but will look through and send comments to Nathan.

Meeting notes from 16 November 2006 were reviewed by the forum. All actions have been completed, except the review of the August 16 meeting notes. Meeting notes confirmed with no changes.

Nathan explained he would like to start posting the meeting notes on the MFish website like other recreational forums are doing. For this reason he said he will make sure at each meeting we review the meeting notes form the previous meeting so that the notes can be posted.

Actions:

Nathan will email everyone meeting notes from 22 February meeting

Forum to review August and November meeting notes and email or post feedback.

Aquaculture Management Areas

A discussion and explanation of the Aquaculture management Areas proposed for Golden and Tasman Bay was provided by Demelza and Christine.

Christine explained they were starting consultation. Under the new legislation there is 6 months for the Ministry to make a decision. Because the Ministry does preliminary decisions that go out for consultation there is a tight timeframe for each step of the process. An information pack has been sent out. Asking for people to provide feedback on back pages included in these information packs. Submissions are due by the 16 March. This is a 20 day consultation. Demelza explained there is an application for 149 hectares in Tasman Bay and 2016 hectares in Golden Bay.

Q from forum member:

Can people do other forms of aquaculture? Eg if it is a mussel farm to start off with can people change it at a latter date.

A: Christine and Demelza explained that it depends on what the zoning is for the farm. Also people can apply for a variation –this changes the type of fish species.

Q-does this come back to MFish for analysis and approval.

Christine said that her understanding at this stage is that it does not come back to MFish if a variation is sought.

It was explained one area is proposed for Tasman one and two areas are proposed for Golden Bay. Initially when the applications were made to the environment court the area was twice as big as the current application.

Jonny raised a concern and problem that he had not received copies of the consultation material for each of the different groups he represented. Demelza explained that was because MFish was aware that he was receiving a copy of the consultation thought the recreational forum process. Demelza and Christine provided a promise this would not happen in the future and that consultation packs would be sent out for each group Johnny (and others) represented.

Christine explained that the more information MFish had from fishers on the effects of these proposals on fishers then good decisions can be made. The more site specific information can be the better.

Review members regional updates

Members provided an update on recreational fishing in their local areas. A form was submitted by most members.

Actions:

Nikki to compile local update reports into the Excel database.

Nathan/Nikki to ask Geoff Clark from compliance to attend the next meeting to give a compliance update.

Shared Fisheries Policy

It was agreed that the forum would provide a joint submission on the shared policies document. It was decided this was a priority and brought forward in the agenda to make sure this was completed.

Nathan and Nikki typed these as the forum went through each proposal.

Action: Nikki and Nathan to work these notes up into a submission and send to the forum to check prior to being submitted to MFish

MFish Update

Nathan informed the forum that the area that has previously been managed by the Nelson office has now been divided and that Leigh Mitchell has been appointed the manager of this office.

Nathan said that he expected at the next forum meeting there should be results from the recreational fishing survey in the Marlborough Sounds as well as the recreational research project that has occurred on the West Coast.

Nathan to follow up on providing preliminary results from the recreational fishing surveys that have recently been completed.

Forum Review

Nathan explained that MFish was conducting a review of all of the recreational forums. It was decided that the PowerPoint presentation would not be done, and forum members agreed to fill in comments on the handout provided and send it in. There was general discussion around venue and timing of the meetings. Forums members said they prefer evenings (weekends are for fishing and family) and that either MFish or Trailways venues were ok, some noted the convenience of having them at MFish because all of the accessories (computers screens etc were all set up).

Actions:

Forum members to send back feedback forums to MFish.

Standards

Nathan explained there were some Standards MFish is consulting over.

Nathan explained what standards are, what they will be used for. Nathan said a really good summary of the proposals is included in the latest MFish update. Nikki and Nathan provided short PowerPoint presentations for each of the three standards MFish is consulting on. Given the time this was a short discussion. Copies of the PowerPoint presentations are available.

Closed

10.15 pm