MINISTRY BACKS INDUSTRY

Today we read with dismay a press release from Green Peace gloating over the fact that some international retailers have stopped stocking Orange Roughy. 

Retailers pull orange roughy

Greenpeace says the Government must stop fishing orange roughy, after two more major international retailers confirmed they have dropped the fish from sale due to sustainability concerns.

“The rest of the world is saying “no thanks” to our unsustainable seafood, but our Government insists on continuing to exploit it,” said Karli Thomas, Greenpeace New Zealand oceans campaigner.

Last week Trader Joes, a USA chain with over 300 supermarkets, confirmed it had discontinued sales of orange roughy "based on customer feedback and in support of work to source sustainable seafood."(1)

Last month Canada’s largest retail chain, Loblaw, confirmed it had stopped stocking orange roughy and Patagonian toothfish for similar reasons. Since the start of 2009 four Canadian supermarket chains have stopped selling orange roughy and one has removed hoki from sale.

This is a growing trend and one that the Seafood industry needs to counter. A PR offensive to counter this disinformation is critical before its too late. 

However we were delighted that  the Ministry of Fisheries defended the nations management of fish stocks. This is a new and welcome phenomemon. The Ministry is responsible for the integrity of the fisheries management system but has been slow to defend it in the past leaving that to the Seafood Industry. We  have never heard of Mr Lockwood before  but sounds like he has the sort of integrity and balls the Ministry has needed for a long long time. 

 The ministry today said fish stocks were carefully managed to ensure sustainability, using a world leading quota management system.
"Bottom trawling is the main fishing method for catching orange roughy. It takes place within New Zealand's comprehensive fisheries management system," ministry deputy chief executive Gavin Lockwood said.
"New Zealand bottom trawling is very closely managed, we know which fishing vessels are bottom trawling, we use satellite monitoring so we know exactly where they are fishing and we require detailed catch reports so we know how much is being caught."
Seventeen areas have been closed to bottom trawling, providing protection to an area of seafloor equal to 1.2 million square kilometres, or an area four times the landmass of New Zealand, Mr Lockwood said. These were the largest closures of their type anywhere in the world, he said.
"One point two million square kilometres of pristine, un-fished seafloor is protected to ensure that the natural bio-diversity and eco-systems are preserved," Mr Lockwood said.
New Zealand's Quota Management System was internationally regarded as one of the world's best fisheries management systems, he said.

Love that man!  Give him a long free lunch at Shed 5.

LIQUID SCAMPI

A Roarprawn reader submitted this - we don't know why...

Advertisement of Application for Putting Company into Liquidation
CIV-2009-441-739

This document notifies you that:
1. On 3 November 2009, an application for putting SCAMPI VENTURES LIMITED into liquidation was filed in the High Court at Napier. The application is to be heard by the High Court at Napier on 10 December 2009 at 10.00am.
2. A person, other than the defendant company, who wants to appear at the hearing of the application must file an appearance not later than the second working day before that day.
3. The plaintiff is the Chief Executive of the Ministry of Fisheries at Wellington, whose address for service is at Credit Consultants Debt Services NZ Limited, Level 3, 3—9 Church Street (PO Box 213 or DX SX 10069), Wellington. Telephone: (04) 470 5972.
Note: You may obtain further information from the registry of the Court or from the plaintiff or the plaintiff’s solicitor.
Dated this 20th day of November 2009.
DIANNE S. LESTER, Solicitor for Plaintiff.
SCAMPI VENTURES LIMITED

Apparently, according to the companies office, the shareholders are Graeme Clive Henry from Hamilton and Christopher Paul Walker Washdyke

COD BE WILLING

We think this is an inspired move by the Minister of Fisheries. Phil Heatley. Previous Minister Jim Anderton was captured by his officials and put in a blanket ban on blue cod, a moved that stunned the seafood sector.
Heatley has been willing to listen to the well reasoned arguments of both the recreational fishermen and others who have convinced him the ban was a crock. However Heatley is a smart bugger . He is obviously ensuring that the recreationalists are a little bit more engaged in the management of the blue cod fishery.

A group of local stakeholders has been working with the Ministry of Fisheries on a management plan that will rebuild the fishery while allowing for a managed recreational harvest.

“Advice from the group tells me good progress has been made towards a possible partial or full reopening of the fishery in the 2010/11 summer season,” Mr Heatley said.

New scientific research is under way that will inform the decision on when and how to reopen the fishery.

As announced in March, the Blue Cod Management Group is working toward delivering a plan that:

• will see the fishery opening sooner than the four years, either wholly or partially;
• is easy for fishers to understand, and practical for them to use;
• is straight forward for Ministry of Fisheries officers to police;
• requires some form of recreational catch reporting, so success can be monitored.

Its a good example of all interests working together for a common goal. And its the last point that is a quantum leap forward by recreational interests - catch reporting. Good data means good management.

Well done him. The recreational sector is well over due to take more responsibility for fisheries management . For too long it has been all take no responsibility.

HOOKED ON BULLSHIT

Sometimes it is important to comment on some of the wacky and emotive crap the Green party puts into the public arena.

We love Hooker Sealions. They are very cool. We also love the Seafood industry and sad as it maybe some sealions will die as we harvest seafood. We need a regime that ensures minimal deaths but ensures the seafood harvest is sustained.

Up until now the regulations have been based on spurious science and emotion. That is changing and its pissing off the Greens.

So we indulge in not fishing - but fisking..

Government leaves sea lions to fend for themselves

Press Release by Green Party at 3:42 pm, 11 Aug 2009

Today's Government decision to abandon the sea lion Population Management Plan (PMP) leaves the species high and dry, and moves them a step closer to extinction.

There is no evidence that the population is heading toward extinction under the current management regime. The PMP would have set a regime (called MALFiRM) that may not have been substantially different from the current Fishing Related Mortality Limit (FRML); MFish would still have implemented the MALFiRM, as it does the FRML.

"It is bitterly disappointing that the Government has ditched one of the best tools we have in the law to protect a threatened marine mammal like the New Zealand sea lion," said Green Party Co-leader Metiria Turei.

The sea lion PMP has limitations about what about what it can achieve; it still sets an annual limit for MFish to implement. Other statutory tools like marine mammal sanctuaries remain available in the absence of a PMP.

The Department of Conservation today announced that it has produced a 'species management plan' (a generic set of guidelines) and dropped the 'Population Management Plan' (a legal plan under the Marine Mammals Protection Act) that the public submitted on.

What a bloody good idea.

"Without a population management plan, the Government decision on how many sea lions can be 'sustainably' killed this coming season will be made under the Fisheries Act rather than our marine protection laws," said Mrs Turei.

So what? The Ministry still administers it.

"This decision shows how important it is to fix our marine protection laws, and how irresponsible it was for the National Party to vote against my recent bill to do just that."

What crap The current approach has the support of most stakeholders.

The Green Party's Marine Animal Protection Law Reform Bill was voted down by the National Party late last month sparking an outcry from environment groups.

Indeed. It was a crap piece of legislation - all rhetoric - no common sense.

"The continued decline of our sea lion shows that the marine sanctuaries and reserves around its breeding grounds are insufficient," said Mrs Turei. "We need a strong plan that will actually protect them."

What utter bullshit. Our muttonbird island is a classic example numbers have remained steady for over 20 years. And the cause of the supposed decline is unknown but is very unlikely to be caused by the direct effect of fishing. Marine reserves cannot be extended beyond the territorial sea of the Auckland Islands, and the option of extending the marine mammal sanctuary remains available under the current legislation even without a PMP. The PMP would have set a regime (MALFiRM) that would have been implemented by MAF if it considers it’s appropriate after looking at all relevant factors.

"Sea lion mums killed at sea result in pups onshore being left to starve when mum doesn't return."

Yup, sometimes, its ugly to watch but thats life and death. and remember deaths at sea can occur as a result of natural events, not just fishing. Whales are a main predator.

72 sea lions were presumed killed by the fishery at the close of the 2008/9 fishing season.

True they are presumed killed, but almost certainly a vast overestimation of actual deaths. During the heaviest part of the squid fishing season over 50% of boats carried official observers. Only four sea lion deaths were reported (two by boats carrying observers and two by boats that weren’t carrying observers). So the extrapolation of figures is the absolute worst case scenario laced with a good dollop of emotive crapola.

The New Zealand sea lion was declared a threatened species under the Marine Mammals Protection Act in 1997. It is the rarest sea lion in the world.

Give us a break. It was always a small discrete population. Its at the top of the food chain and there is never huge populations of anything at the top of the food chain - marine biology 101.

Natural vulnerability to disease is amplified by sea lions killed in interactions with fishing vessels. It is estimate that 700 adults have been killed by Sub-Antarctic squid trawlers in the past decade.

The 700 estimate may be about right assuming 70 per year, but that of course is 70 assumed deaths under the FRML – remember that with significant observation of the fishery this year only four sea lion deaths were actually confirmed, two on observed boats and two reported by unobserved boats.

In the absence of a Population Management Plan, fishing-related deaths of sea lions will be managed by the Ministry of Fisheries, leaving the Department of Conservation to manage other aspects under a weak non-statutory plan.

True, but a classic straw man statement: nothing has changed; whatever the regime it would have been managed by the Ministry of Fisheries. so we reckon all in all a good move by the government. Rational and reasonable. - a far cry from the emotive driven legislation we have seen in the past decade.

OBSERVER PROGRAMME ENDANGERED?

We blogged on the silliness of the three year observer programme for Hectors dolphins that has landed two southern fishing boats in hot water.
Its a safety issue and the two skippers in question have made a stand. No dolphins were caught the first season. The word is that if there are no dolphins caught this year then the third year of the programme could be scrapped.

What a bloody good idea that would be.

FLOUNDERING AROUND IN A SEA OF SILLINESS

We got a call from Bluff last week from some good old boys who were at a funeral for a bloke we had grown up with - he wasn't much past fifty - so our mortal coil tightened up a bit at the news. RIP Manuel.

Anyway the boys who were at the wake started talking about the fact that one of the captains of the fleet was in a bit of bother, as reported in the ODT

Fishermen have been ordered to carry observers on board their boats to check to see if they are catching Hector's Dolphins in their nets. A couple refused to comply and now they are facing court action.

We reckon our old mate and CE of the Federation of Commercial fishermen, Pete Dawson sums the issue up succinctly ( Pete is the king of succinctness)

Federation of Commercial Fishermen chief executive Peter Dawson said the ministry's move to prosecute was "bloody minded" given the letters instructing fishermen to take observers failed to explain fishermen's rights or address safety concerns.

"As a consequence [these fishermen] stuck to their guns and face getting a criminal conviction."

Observers spent 963 days at sea and did not see a Hector's dolphin death, yet the ministry was going ahead with prosecutions, he said.

All it did was raise the levels of antagonism between the ministry and fishermen and put fishermen already facing hard times in an even tougher position.

"Education is far better than putting the boot in."

We agree, now the Bluff vessel in question is neither big nor flash - its about 50 feet and while observers on big mid size trawlers need to take a cut lunch and a compass to get to the aft end of a boat - on the seized vessel in question, the net drums are within spitting distance of the focs'le. ( the little house bit where the skipper spends his day. )

So this is going to be an argument about safety.

Now we love Hectors - they look a lot like Tuna so its a fair guess they taste pretty good but we have in our relentless battle to protect all Charismatic Mega Fauna, given these cute wee guys more protection than we give kids from sexual predators.

That's just daft. And for boats like the one MAF has seized, having someone on board, purely so they can have a "look see" when you are in heavy southern seas would be a bloody nightmare.

We reckon that these fishermen, if paid a smallish bounty for every Hectors dolphin they see and photograph or video ( remember they can plot their exact location), would give us a far better idea of their population and their habits.

Costs are high enough for these particular fishermen and we agree with Pete - education would be far better than this silliness.

MAF has far bigger fish to fry - like rooting out the organised crime that is pillaging our coast of paua but hell it is easy to pick off a couple of small time trawlermen than gang members isn't it? And the environmental and economic damage of paua poaching is quantifiable while there is no hard evidence that these trawlers are having a disastrous effect on the southern Hector dolphin population.

These two boats have dared to do what the rest of the fleet wanted to but were too scared to because of the financial consequences. It is time for some intervention and a new way of thinking. That way we might just take some sensible steps to protect these tasty wee marine flyers instead of making a small human segment of the seafood industry an endangered species.

FINALLY

We blogged on the Ministry of Fisheries 2030 strategic fisheries report a few weeks ago. Today the Herald reports that we maybe only months away from seeing a consent granted for a huge Aquaculture farm in the Coromandel.

That is fantastic news, Aquaculture has enormous potential to earn millions of dollars in export.

FISHERIES RED TAPE IN FOR THE CHOP

This morning we listened to RNZ and heard a yarn on the Price Waterhouse Coopers 2030 report which takes a long term view of New Zealand fisheries in an interview with Phil Heatley.

Heatley is shaping up to be a good Minister of Fisheries and he has a commercial focus. This report underpins that.

There are two main points for us - that the industry is severely over regulated. There are 8000 regulations governing fisheries. Well placed sources tell us we will see some action soon on trimming some of the myriad of superfluous rules and regs.
The second issue, which Heatley highlighted this morning, is that while the industry is considered to be a world leader because there is a high level of reporting from the commercial sector - that is not replicated in the customary or the recreational sectors. Heatley wants to tackle that too.
Yee bloody ha, we say , about time.
With rights come responsibilities and customary and recreational fishers need to help this country build up its knowledge bank on fish stocks.
We also understand that Rodney's red tape squad will be tacking fisheries - that's a damn good thing. If you want to see red tape follow the paper trail for rock lobster from the pot to the plate. We will be keeping a close watch on progress.

Attached is the PWC report
MFishFisheries2030ReportRevised Final 19Feb

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Business & Legal 20.30 price waterhouse coo

GOOD DECISION

We are delighted by this Rex Haig wont get compensation - we covered it as a journo and had a death threat from one of the major players. It was a very sordid business.

It appears that the legal eagles think that Haig was " probably involved in the murder of Mark Roderique. We think that probably thats a bloody good analysis.

MAORI MAHI HUI

We had a bet that there would be some Maori who turned up at the hui without having an invite. We have heard there was at least one.
Someone with links to fish and the Chathams. Too Too much, we say. Just rude really and apparently they wouldn't shut up. We can remember them from way back and they had bugger all to contribute then.

And we hear that the Ministry of Fisheries is restructuring as well. Excellent. We look forward to be efficiencies in the future.

ROARPRAWN DROWNED OUT BY CALLS FOR HOKI/SCAMPI INQUIRY

Wellington Hive and Kiwi blog are both calling for An Anti - Corruption Commission to be set up with one of the first tasks being to investigate Scampi and Hoki and Meurant and all the rest of the corrupt bribing buggers involved.

We could not agree more and we hope that Rodney Hide stays staunch on this issue.

Salt laden teaser

There is a ripple on calm waters and over the next couple of weeks the denizens of the deep will surface.

Its still about scampi

http://wellingtonhive.blogspot.com/2008/08/greens-party-to-ultimate-corruption.html


and Queen Bee understands. Yip the greens have their hemp undies round their ankles on this one.


Less that 50% of the scampi quota has been fished this year. Boats are tied up. The beds are a mess.

The fishery is stuffed. And the same "science" that was used to develop our " sustainable" hoki quota was used to develop the scampi quota.


The question for the business reporters is did Sanfords buy a lemon when they bought simunovich fisheries?



Shaun Plunkets interview on RNZ this morning was one of his finest. He is a pleasure to listen to. It was almost like a boxing match- winnie was on the ropes dazed and confused.

It should be used as a training tape for all young journos...

rodney sets sail in the good ship anti corruption

Its good to see that Rodney is back on the case, he has fronted up to the serious fraud office with what he says is " evidence" - his newly found gravitas will make his stand against corruption all the more appealing to the masses.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10527146

There are still two more cases to be heard on the scampi issue and many lives have been impacted by what was one of the worst scandals in NZ's history. This issue will be in the news for some time to come.

The ultimate irony is that that the scampi fishery may well be on the verge of collapse.