MFish Update “He pänui” - Northern Region March 2007

Seaweek 4-11 March 2007

If you’ve got kids, check out the Seaweek activities happening in your area at www.seaweek.org.nz

Seaweek aims to raise awareness of the coast and ocean and encourage all Kiwis to help look after their local marine areas. It’s coordinated by the New Zealand Association for Environmental Education (NZAEE) and Sir Peter Blake Trust. Sponsors include DOC, Ministry for the Environment, Ministry of Fisheries, St Kilda Marine Environment Trust and New Zealand Geographic.

Shared fisheries consultation continues til end of February

Shared fisheries are those in which commercial, amateur and customary fishers all participate. A discussion paper that outlines management options for shared fisheries is currently available (see Discussion Paper).

The Ministry is seeking your views by 28 February 2007. You can make a submission on-line, or by contacting the Ministry of Fisheries.

MFish will consider the submissions made on this discussion paper, carry out further study, and develop recommendations for the Government. This process will involve working with other government departments to ensure that a consistent and coherent approach is taken. Cabinet will make final decisions in mid-2007.

Fisheries amendment to favour sustainability

The Government is proposing to change fisheries legislation to make decisions made under the Fisheries Act more cautious and favour sustainability when there is little or poor information.

“I want the ability to act cautiously when I think it is necessary for the long-term sustainability of the fishery or the marine ecosystem,” says Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton. “Current fisheries legislation is not completely clear about this precautionary approach. I want to make the legislation clear.” The current ambiguity was one of the many issues in a recent High Court action, initiated by fishing industry interests around sustainability measures introduced in a North Island orange roughy fishery.

The Fisheries Act 1996 Amendment Bill can be viewed at www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/PB/Legislation/Bills/d/9/4/d94367eb9b6b40f28219e174909fe198.htm

Changes to recreational regulations

The Minister has made decisions about changes to some of the regulations that apply to recreational fishing. Most changes will be implemented by 1 April 2007.

Recreational bag limits

• The amateur regulations will be clarified to indicate that the recreational daily bag limit only applies to fish taken of legal size.
• The amateur regulations will be amended so the daily bag limit does not apply to finfish returned immediately to the waters from which they were taken and that are likely to survive. To minimise any mortality associated with releasing fish, the Minister has directed MFish to develop and distribute fish handling guidelines.
• Any fish that are tagged and released as part of a recognised tagging programme will not count towards recreational fishers’ daily bag limits.

Changes in recreational size limits

• Red Gurnard – a 25cm minimum legal size (MLS) will be put in place. At the local level, especially in predominantly recreational fishery areas, a MLS is likely to contribute to an improved quality of fishing for red gurnard in the longer term.
• Trumpeter – a 35 cm MLS will be put in place for trumpeter until more reliable information on size at maturity is available for New Zealand stocks.
• Blue Cod – the Minister proposes a reduction in the blue cod MLS from 33 cm to 30cm in BCO 1, which is a more biologically appropriate size in this area.

Recreational Scallop Season

The Minister has agreed to shift the scallop season by six weeks in the area from North Cape to Cape Runway. The new season will be from 1 September to 31 March. The new arrangements will take effect from 1 September 2007.

The existing seasons throughout the rest of the country will remain unchanged. The Minister noted specific concerns about the sustainability of scallops in north-west fisheries were raised during consultation on this issue. The Minister has directed MFish to consult on refining the recreational scallop season for the north-west coast.

Regulation 19A

In December 2005, the amateur regulations were amended to allow divers to take up to two extra bag limits of scallops or dredge oysters when safety people are on board their vessel. The way the regulations were amended had an unforeseen consequence, where even slightly exceeding the daily bag limit was classified as a serious non-commercial offence. The amendment ensures that when a diver takes less than three times their individual entitlement under rl9A when safety people are on board their vessel, it is not considered to automatically be a serious non-commercial offence.

Consultation on draft ‘standards’ continues

Standards are currently being developed to help provide clear guidelines for stakeholders about minimum levels of performance needed to support credible fisheries management. This work is on-going. Three draft standards have been released:

• A harvest strategy standard that relates to the stock size of fisheries managed in the quota management system. The standard outlines a more cautious approach for managing fisheries to ensure sustainability.
• A consultation standard that sets out how MFish will meet minimum requirements for consultation under s.12 of the Fisheries Act
• A QMS introduction standard that outlines how decisions will be made about introducing new species into the quota management system.

To find out more, or to see copies of the standards, get in touch with Richard Fanselow in the Auckland office. MFish is requesting comments up until the end of March 2007.

Other standards being developed for consultation include: benthic impact, seabird, Hector’s/Maui dolphins, shark, sealion, input and participation of tangata whenua, harvest strategy, deemed value, governance and representation, purchase, service delivery, reporting, allocation, analysis and assessment of management options and environmental impact assessment.

Inter-tidal shellfish management

Gathering a feed of cockles, pipi, or tuatua at the beach is a popular summer activity in the Auckland/Coromandel region. However, some shellfish beds in the area are fragile and under threat, from a combination of harvesting pressures and habitat degradation. Where shellfish habitat is degraded, the beds won’t handle as much fishing pressure.

To ensure harvesting does not harm stocks that in many places were already under environmental pressure, in the mid-1990s the Ministry of Fisheries cut bag limits for cockle, pipi and tuatua in the northern area from 150 per person per day to 50 of each. At the time, this seemed a reasonable bag limit. However, people regularly take more than this because they believe that 50 is “not enough for a feed”. If shellfish gatherers want a higher bag limit, we may need extra sustainability measures – like area closures or fishing seasons. So we need to work with the gatherers to come up with management measures that will work for them, yet still allow the fishery to be sustainable.

The Ministry believes the best way to get in touch with these people is through their communities. So we have asked local authorities in the region to help us do this, as they have various networks within the community. Local authorities are also working to improve the habitat that supports healthy shellfish populations. Councils have a role in managing storm-water, and controlling sedimentation and pollution.

‘Bigfish’ project

The aim of bigfish is to record local sightings of whale sharks, basking sharks, white pointers (great white sharks) and devil and manta rays. The project is based around the web site www.bigfish.net.nz.

Sightings guides and information posters are available online.

Science working groups

Each year at this time the Ministry holds science working group meetings to report back on research that has been done for particular fisheries. These meetings are open for anyone to attend. A series of ‘plenary’ sessions are then held in May, at which a Plenary Report is produced that outlines the state of fish stocks. The results of the plenary guide the development of advice to the Minister of Fisheries about what fishstocks should be looked at for changes to management measures to ensure sustainability.

Upcoming working group meetings for 2007 include:

Pelagic	7 March	Auckland
Eels	16 March	Hamilton
Inshore	23 March	Wellington
Pelagic	29-30 March	Auckland
Shellfish	12 April	Auckland
Pelagic	13 April	Auckland
Plenary	1-4 May	Wellington

New Year’s honours for Les Curtin

Les Curtin has been made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit. After 40 years with the Ministry, in its various states, Les is now set to retire a second time around. Les joined the Ministry - then the Marine Department - back in 1966 as the Oyster Advisory Officer, and showed that oyster farming in New Zealand could be a viable industry. The work he did within the industry – training courses, guidelines and protocols - formed the foundations of the oyster farming industry in New Zealand. Known by Maori and many in the industry as the ‘grandfather of aquaculture,’ the work Les did helped a number of communities in Northland. After retiring from the public service in the late 1980s, Les was re-employed soon after to manage its statutory obligations for marine farming. The vast amount of knowledge Les has on the industry and his approachable manner saw him become the go-to guy for local bodies and government departments with aquaculture queries.