School students marvel at a Sandager's Wrasse fish, during a snorkelling trip to the Poor Knights Islands, Northland. Photo / Sophie Journee
A plan to allow commercial fishers to land and sell 19 reef fish species caught as bycatch in two fishing zones around the top of the North Island has been abandoned by the Oceans and Fisheries Minister.
Shane Jones, however, said he has no intention of banning bottom trawling – a method opponents argue undermines protection by destroying the long-forming habitats of those same reef species.
Neither would he entertain adding further reef species to the protection list as recommended by some opponents.
“I’ve waded through enough drama over these 19 species of fish, and now that we’re in the midst of a major geopolitical threat to our economic resilience, I’m not going to muck around with any other species of fish. Some other minister, well into the future, can turn their mind to that,” he said, referring to the need to follow the regulatory process, including further public consultation.
Jones had proposed relaxing Fisheries Regulation 20E, the 1993 rule designed to shield reef fish from overfishing across Fisheries Management Areas 1 and 9, which stretch from Cape Runaway on the East Coast to North Cape, including the Bay of Plenty and Hauraki Gulf, and down the western coast to North Taranaki.
More than 22,000 submissions – a significant amount of which Jones claims were likely AI-generated or mass-produced – were received on his plan to allow trawl, Danish seine, and bottom long-line fishers to retain bycatch of the 19 species.
In backtracking, Jones said officials had “tested the proposal” and he’d “weighed up the costs and benefits along with feedback from the recreational fishing community and the public, and decided to keep the current restrictions in place”. He said submissions from school students during Sea Week programmes earlier this month had also significantly influenced his thinking.
The decision is Jones’ second major turnaround this year on proposed changes to commercial fishing rules released for public discussion last October. In January, he abandoned a plan to allow commercial fishers to sell landed marlin bycatch after backlash from recreational fishers, conservation advocates and Northland National MP Grant McCallum.
Jones previously argued the amendments were part of an effort to “remove redundant regulations” and could have reduced waste and helped the commercial industry manage unavoidable bycatch. But critics warned commercial landing would inevitably encourage deliberate targeting of reef species while classifying them as bycatch - a loophole they said had been exploited in the past.
Jones acknowledged those concerns, saying opponents wanted commercial fishers who accidentally caught reef fish to continue to return them to the sea.
Whananaki woman Samara Nicholas, co-founder of Mountain to Sea Conservation Trust and founder of Experiencing Marine Reserves, said Jones’ decision this week was “great news for New Zealand reef fish”.
It was “far more valuable” for children to see reef species alive on the reef than turned into a commodity, she said. Every school, she believed, should have access to a protected “wet library” where students could experience marine life first-hand and develop informed, future-focused views on sustainable fisheries.
Her submission reflected wider opposition: She said the 19 reef species were ecologically vulnerable to depletion, played critical roles in maintaining reef ecosystem health, and held significant cultural and recreational value for snorkellers, divers, and coastal communities.
Nicholas argued that Fisheries New Zealand had not provided compelling evidence that the current protections were genuinely “redundant” and recommended extending the protected species list to include pink maomao, blue maomao, and granddaddy hapuku (red scorpionfish).
Nicholas said Jones’ refusal to ban bottom trawling undermined efforts to protect reef fish. Opponents argue the method destroys seabed habitats that can take decades to recover.
“It’s just not a sustainable way of fishing at all,” she said.
Jones forcefully rejected calls for an inshore trawling ban, saying bottom and midwater trawling is used to catch almost 70% of New Zealand’s commercially harvested haul.
Those leading campaigns against trawling are “feeding this appetite of demonising the commercial fishing industry – really attempting to terminate commercial fishing, and I will never agree to that,” Jones said.
“Significant effort is placed on understanding and minimising the effects of bottom trawling, he said. This includes collecting information on each fishing event, its location, and the intensity of its contact in different regions. We know that most bottom contact trawling takes place in areas that have already been trawled, so it does not affect underwater features.”
Data cited in last October‘s proposal showed that less than 10 tonnes of the 19 species combined were caught across the 2022/23 and 2023/24 years.
Trawl vessels accounted for about 90% of the total. Giant boarfish made up 55% of the recorded catch, and long‑finned boarfish 32%; 11 species made up the remaining 13%, while six species were not recorded at all over the two years.
Jones previously told the Northern Advocate that while he had no plans to end trawling, he accepted the method should ultimately be replaced by more ecologically sensitive technology as it becomes viable.
He is scheduled to meet with stakeholders, including LegaSea and the Sport Fishing Council, on Friday to brief them on the reef fish decision.
Sarah Curtis is a news reporter for the Northern Advocate, focusing on a wide range of issues. She has nearly 20 years’ experience in journalism, most of which she spent court reporting in Gisborne and on the East Coast.