MFish Update “He pänui”

Northern Region October 2006

Sustainability Review October 2006

The Minister has made decisions on sustainability measures and other management controls for the start of the fishing year beginning on 1 October. These are outlined on the MFish website, but in summary, are as follows:

• ‘Low knowledge’ stocks (mainly deepwater fish species around NZ) – increase total allowable catches for 18 stocks to provide more realistic catch limits following better reporting of commercial catch since their introduction into QMS in 1998 and 1999. Species include cardinalfish, frostfish, ghost shark, rubyfish, ribaldo, sea perch, and white warehou.
• Orange roughy 1 (northern New Zealand) - reduce the total allowable catch from 1,470 tonnes to 840 tonnes (this decision is now subject to legal challenge);
• Orange roughy 3B (southern New Zealand) – reduce the total allowable catch from 13,335 tonnes to 12, 075 tonnes;
• Paua 5A (Fiordland) – maintain current total allowable catch of 149.98 tonnes, but seek further research to assess status of stock;
• Rig 7 (top and west coast of the South Island) – reduce the total allowable catch from 403 tonnes to 270 tonnes;
• Alfonsino 1 (northern New Zealand) – maintain current total allowable catch of 304 tonnes, and encourage industry to improve their participation in adaptive management programme to collect information on status of stock.

Regulatory Review April 2007

MFish is in the final stages of compiling its final advice paper to the Minister following consultation on proposed changes to fisheries regulations applicable to the northern North Island:

• Proposal to update guidelines for the setting and varying of deemed values used for balancing commercial catch at the end of a fishing year;
• Freshwater Eels – proposal to apply the South Island commercial eel maximum size limit (4 kgs) nationwide;
• Fifth Schedule – proposal to review species on the Fifth Schedule, which allows for 45% aggregation of quota shares;
• Inshore trawl form – proposal for a new form to replace existing inshore trawl catch and effort returns to provide better information;
• Catfish – final advice following earlier consultation on proposals to prohibit the possession of live catfish by recreational and sale of live catfish by commercial fishers.

The Minister is expected to make a decision on these proposals by the end of October 2006, but they will not be implemented until April 2007 to allow time for regulatory amendments to be made.

Review of Recreational Regulations Round 2: 2006

The Ministry is also in the final stages of compiling its advice to the Minister on a further set of proposed changes to the regulations that apply to recreational fishing. They are:

• Whether undersize fish/ fish larger than minimum size/ tagged fish should be allowed to be taken and then released without being counted as part of a fisher’s daily bag limit;
• Introduce/change minimum legal sizes for:
• Gurnard – to 25cm
• Trumpeter – to 45cm
• Blue cod – to 30cm in the North Island
• Change the scallop season to begin on 1 September and end on 31 March (current season is 15 July – 14 February).

The Minister is expected to make decisions on these proposals by the end of October 2006 but they will not be implemented until April 2007 to allow time for regulatory amendments to be made.

Annual Research Planning Group meetings

The series of research planning group meetings to identify the research needs for particular fisheries for the 2007-08 fishing year has been largely completed during September 2006. These meetings are open for anyone to attend. Following discussion by each of the research planning groups, research proposals are considered by a Research Co-ordinating Committee before a further opportunity for formal input from fishery interests. The Research Co-ordinating Committee is due to meet on 12 & 13 October 2006 in Wellington.

Shared Fisheries Policy

The Shared Fish Project is aiming to provide more certainty to all fishers on how Total Allowable Catches will be allocated to customary, commercial and recreational fishers, in fisheries such as snapper that are “shared” between all three sectors.

The planned release date for the shared fisheries discussion document has been delayed while the Minister considers the proposals and completes ongoing discussions with his colleagues. MFish can’t provide detailed information about the process and timeframe for next steps at this stage. Planned consultation meetings on the shared fisheries proposals have been deferred, but we expect the process may resume in October. Notice of the next steps will be provided as soon as possible on the Ministry’s website.

Consultation papers on the web

All of the papers that the Ministry has recently consulted on as part of the sustainability measures and regulation reviews are available on the new Ministry of Fisheries website, at:

http://www.fish.govt.nz/en-nz/Consultations

This site also lists everything that’s coming up for consultation in the next few months (including the Shared Fisheries proposals), so you can have a look and ask for any papers on issues that you would like to know more about.

There are also links to other pages including:

• The Status of New Zealand's Fisheries: created to inform the public about the sustainability of New Zealand's fisheries;
• Nabis: provides spatial & visual representations of our marine biological & fisheries management data;

• Starfish: a teacher & student resource with lots of information about New Zealand’s Fisheries

Northland scallop catch limit

Following consultation with fishery interests in the Northland scallop fishery, MFish has sent the final advice paper to the Minister on an in-season increase to the total allowable catch (TAC) for the stock. Recent research surveys indicate there has been a significant rebuild in scallop abundance following the low levels that occurred in the late 1990s due to tubeworm and black gill disease. The decision from the Minister is due in mid October.