Owen Symmans: 'Empty' sea has plenty, thanks to the quotas

COMMENT


Are New Zealand's fisheries half-full or half-empty? The Herald suggested the latter. It went beyond that: "Our empty oceans" said the eye-catching headline.

But this view flies in the face of Fisheries Ministry research which shows that for those fisheries on which we have information, 80 per cent are above the targets for sustainability set by the Government, and rebuilding strategies are in place for the other 20 per cent.

Collectively, this accounts for about two-thirds of New Zealand's commercial fisheries by weight and value.

The "new research" trumpeted by the Herald was largely correct, but it was presented in a biased way that made our fisheries look three-quarters empty.

One of the internationally accepted principles of fisheries management is that for continuing maximum sustainable yield, stocks should be kept at a proportion of their unfished size - usually in the 20 to 35 per cent range.

At these levels, stocks will produce the greatest annual crop. The Minister of Fisheries is bound by legislation to keep our fisheries at or about the level appropriate for each stock.

In doing so, the minister plays a balancing game. Some years the stock will be above this; some years a little below.

Showing graphs of fish stocks crashing to 20 per cent of their unfished size gave a false impression of our fisheries.

Nowhere on the graphs were these stock levels related to the theoretical maximum sustainable yield for each fishery, or consideration given to why the reductions had occurred.

The report said: "Twenty per cent is the danger level for sustainable fishing." This is wrong. Science suggests that maintaining stocks at 20 per cent or slightly less of their unfished size is probably about the best level for maximum sustainable snapper yields.

For other stocks, 20 per cent is a place to try to increase from, but not a danger level.

Our fisheries are managed more sustainably than most everywhere else in the world. But it is inevitable that adjustments to catches need to be made if we want to ensure sustainability.

We must do this because the oceans and the fish we take from them are part of a large and complex system. As climate affects our farms, bringing good years and bad, so this happens with our fisheries - the hoki fishery being a case in point.

Hoki seems to have good spawning years when the winters are cool. The cold winters of the mid-1990s resulted in excellent spawning, allowing the Government to raise catch limits up to 250,000 tonnes.

Since then, we have had warmer winters and fewer young fish, so to stop overfishing, the quotas have been brought down.

Is it surprising that the industry, not the Government, insisted that the allowable catch of hoki be dropped last year from 200,000 tonnes to 180,000 tonnes?

It should not be because the industry has a huge and expensive infrastructure built around this fishery. Why jeopardise the long-term future of this investment for a quick return?

Perhaps if you were a small operator struggling to make mortgage payments, you might consider such an approach. But the New Zealand industry is dominated by larger companies with longer-term planning horizons.

This year, Sanford celebrated 100 years as a publicly-listed fishing company. Firms like that are in fishing for the long haul; they want to be fishing 100 years from now. Sustainable stocks and a sustainable industry are what New Zealand's fishing companies want.

The Herald insinuated this was not the case when the article stated that "fishers are expected to resist quota cuts". Where did that information come from?

Sealord Group chief executive Doug McKay said quite the opposite when interviewed by the Treaty of Waitangi Fisheries Commission publication Tangaroa about likely quota cuts in the hoki fishery.

"Our view is that a reduction [to next year's hoki catches] should be on the basis of two things: one, protecting the long-term value in the asset, and two, on the basis of conservatism, we think the cut should be overly conservative," he said. These are hardly the words of a resistant industry.

Suggesting the "new figures" will put pressure on the Government to reassess the quota management system appears to spring from the views of Forest and Bird spokesman Barry Weeber rather than the balance of fact.

Internationally, our quota system is highly regarded as a model for sustainable fisheries management.

And it has been highly successful in rebuilding stocks of snapper, crayfish and scallops depleted by commercial fishing in the 1970s.

If the Weekend Herald had published a snapper graph from 1981, rather than from 1931, it would have shown a completely different story. It would show our seas are steadily filling up, not emptying.

* Owen Symmans is the chief executive of the Seafood Industry Council. He is responding to a Herald article which suggested, on the basis of new research, that New Zealand is running out of fish.