KEY POINTS:
Proposed fishing closures by the Government to protect Maui's and Hector's dolphins have no basis in fact and could put hundreds of people out of work, says the Seafood Industry Council.
Maui's and Hector's dolphins live only in New Zealand and are a precious heirloom with which we
need to take great care.
WWF-New Zealand says Maui's are the rarest marine dolphin in the world, with just about 111 left, and may become extinct within 25 years.
WWF senior marine campaigner Rebecca Bird says the proposal is a fork in the road for Hector's and Maui's.
"If we give them total protection they can recover," Bird says. "But unless the public speak out and tells the Government this is what they want, it won't happen and Hector's and Maui's will continue to decline."
A group of organisations including WWF, Forest & Bird and Greenpeace say official figures show some fishing practices are the main cause of death in Hector's dolphins and are urging the fishing industry to accept it is part of the problem and potentially part of the solution.
Extinction is a one-way street. We absolutely cannot get this wrong, but let's not forget that jobs are also precious and despite these days of low unemployment, they must not be discarded without proper justification.
Submissions relating to the Government's Threat Management Plan - in which the Seafood Industry Council says option three would close more than half of New Zealand's coastline - are due by Wednesday.
The proposal will greatly enlarge the coverage of an earlier ban initiated by the seafood industry in 2003 which extended 1.8km out to sea off affected coastlines. The proposed new ban could extend more than 22km for set-netting and 7.4 km for trawling on the west coast of the North Island and will also affect harbours.
Council chief executive Owen Symmans says the facts do not support the proposed closure.
"There's been no entanglements since that point [in 2003]," he says. "There's been no sightings whatsoever of any Maui's dolphins in those harbours so despite that the proposal is that they will close those harbours off to that type of [set net] fishing."
The harbour closures could affect about 200 set net fishermen but the wider impact on employment, including trawlers and processing operations, could affect hundreds of people, Symmans says.
"Fishermen don't want to catch dolphins ... but this is a sledge hammer to crack a walnut situation. There's no proof that they've been in these areas that they want to close off to fishermen."
The Government has indicated it wants to make a decision by Christmas, Symmans says.
"We recognise the need to protect iconic species but let's make decisions based on fact rather than emotion."
Symmans says there has not been a recent survey on the dolphin population and it is unknown if numbers are rising or falling, while the impact of factors such as mortality, predators and pollution had not been analysed.
This is a tough issue for the Government. A cynic would say saving animals and jobs are both vote winners, so which do you pick?
New Zealand promotes itself to the world as a clean, green and environmentally friendly country.
So how might it dent our national image if a species found only here and under our protection was to die out and, for sake of argument, it later turned out more could have been done to save it?
However well the seafood industry constructs its argument the dolphins will likely get the benefit of any doubt because of the risks of getting it wrong but there is still a danger that actions could be disconnected from the problem.
Why put people out of work in areas where there are no dolphins? It's a fair question. Finding the middle ground between the two positions could be tricky. Perhaps there could be a significant but moveable fishing ban, agreed in principle, regularly reviewed and extended immediately into areas if and when dolphins are spotted.
But who's going to keep watch and would fishermen want to go to work with an axe hanging over their heads?
It sounds like a cliche but perhaps a study is needed to gather the data to ensure we successfully protect both our dolphins and that other important species, our fishermen. But don't make it a long one - the clock is ticking.
Naturally Better
Crown Research Institute Crop & Food Research took a big step in commercialising its barley beta-glucan extract discovery last week.
Crop & Food subsidiary GraceLinc said the ingredient product, called Glucagel, had been signed up by Italian food giant Barilla for use in a new range of healthy food products.
GraceLinc says the deal is worth more than $1 million but the longer-term market prospects for the ingredient runs to hundreds of millions.
However, CRIs have been criticised by some people for their ability to commercialise intellectual property and for even competing with the industries they are intended to support.
Anthony Scott, executive director of the Association of Crown Research Institutes, says commercialisation is critical to the purpose of the CRIs.
But not all research success is seen in the bottom line and a research application indicator matrix developed by the Government was being used for the first time this quarter to examine how the organisations performed in a broader context.
"It moves away from just the very narrow focus upon the individual balance sheets of each CRI ... there are times when the value of what they're doing doesn't fall naturally to their balance sheet," Scott says.
Many years of work undertaken by AgResearch had led to the parasitic Irish wasp as a weapon in the fight against clover root weevil.
"It's worth about $400 million to New Zealand each year but there's no way that AgResearch shows that ... value on its balance sheet," Scott says.
The CRIs were commercially savvy and had all the incentives to ensure research did not sit on the shelf, he adds.
"Just as New Zealand has been struggling to develop depth in commercialisation the CRIs, I think, have been at the forefront of that."
The CRIs have led a culture change during their 15-year existence, he says, with more science-based people wanting to make sure their products reached the market and made money for New Zealand. "I think we're starting to see that tsunami of commercialisation build through."
Grab-a-Grape
Thanks to the endeavours of Marlborough-based NZ Extracts, the humble grape seed no longer need be spat into the dustbin of oblivion.
Now you can rub it on your face.
NZ Extracts co-founder and director of research Glenn Vile says the company has developed a method of producing a high-quality antioxidant extract from the seeds which can be used in cosmetics, food and health supplements.
"Grape seeds have traditionally been a difficult and costly waste product to dispose of, having to be transported off to landfills or processed into animal feed," Vile says.
The company is not the first to extract products from grape seed but the market is looking for more natural type products.
"We've developed an environmentally friendly way that utilises a water extraction process to efficiently separate the high quality extracts from the seeds."
New Zealand's fluctuating ozone and levels of ultra-violet laden sunlight may have us ducking for shade on a sunny day but for NZ Extracts this is a bonus as the plants produce antioxidants in the grape seeds for protection.
"We found that sauvignon blanc seeds here in Marlborough have about twice the level of antioxidants as the same seeds overseas," Vile said.
Hubbard's Simply Bran is the first food product to use the extract - providing antioxidants in one serving equivalent to 300g of grapes - and there are inquiries coming from the United States, UK and Japan.
"With growing awareness among consumers in functional foods, we expect this sort of application to increase and anticipate strong interest in what we are doing to come from more food manufacturers both locally and offshore," Vile says.
"While it's still early days, we believe the opportunities for NZ Extracts are significant and exploratory work is already under way in the area of obtaining extracts from other fruits and berries such as kiwifruit."
Show me the money
A new decision-making tool for farmers has shown profit is not always the key driver of choice, says Meat & Wool New Zealand.
AgResearch, funded by Meat & Wool, tested a new spreadsheet tool to help farmers make decisions and to better understand how they came to their conclusions.
Duncan Smeaton from AgResearch says: "We wanted to see why farmers wouldn't adopt a new system, even if it was supposed to make them more money.
"Yearling heifer mating is an example where sound research shows it is profitable, but only around 50 per cent of breeding cow herds have heifers that are bred as yearlings."
A group of eight farmers considering either cow breeding or beef finishing policies ranked decision criteria including profit, affect on family, flexibility and risk.
In nearly half the cases the most profitable option was not preferred when taking all the criteria into consideration.
Meat & Wool research and development portfolio manager Andy Bray says: "While profit was often the single most important component of decision-making, as the research team expected, it was not dominant enough to always control the outcomes.
"People advising farmers are missing the point if they focus on profit alone in trying to encourage farmer uptake of new technologies."
