Call to lift lid on fish bycatches

Fishing industry representatives appear to be attempting to hide the impact of bycatch from the public.

Endangered species of penguins and dolphins such as Ma¯ ui’s and Hector’s are among the creatures that become bycatch.

A letter sent to the Ministry for Primary Industries asks that the Official Information Act be prevented from applying to information gathered by electronic monitoring aboard fishing vessels.

Under the act, anyone can request information from a government department or minister of the Crown and this applies to the ministry’s monitoring of fisheries.

This means the proposed Integrated Electronic Monitoring and Reporting System programme would be covered by the act.

The system’s information would include fisheries catch reporting, real-time vessel location monitoring, and on-boarding fishing activity.

The ministry said the proposed programme would ‘‘allow fisheries to be monitored and managed with far greater certainty’’.

Letter released

The letter to the ministry, from the Deepwater Group, Fisheries Inshore NZ, the Paua Industry Council, Seafood NZ and the NZ Rock Lobster Industry Council on July 4, 2017, was itself released to Forest and Bird under the information act.

The letter said the information from monitoring could be used by people and organisations that had campaigned against commercial fishing and ‘‘serve as ammunition for their anti-fishing agendas’’.

The letter refers to images and video of ‘‘incidental interactions with seabirds, legitimate fish discards, treatment of unintended bycatch’’.

Used by campaigners, the information could cause ‘‘risks to the seafood industry and New Zealand’s international reputation as a reputable source of quality, sustainably-produced seafood could be significantly impaired’’.

The groups hoped an amendment to the Fisheries Act would prevent information collected from being released publicly.

Forest and Bird chief executive Kevin Hague said: ‘‘In plain English, what they are saying is catching endangered penguins, dumping entire hauls of fish overboard and killing Hector’s dolphins looks really bad on TV.

‘‘Well, the solution is to stop doing it, not to hide the evidence. It’s hard to think of a more credibility-damaging activity than trying to change the law so the rest of us can’t see what’s really happening out there.

‘‘Commercial fishing is vulnerable to criticism, not because it’s being misrepresented by media or environmental advocates, but because New Zealanders are shocked by what the fishing industry has got away with.’’

Private data

The groups involved in the letter were also concerned with the volume of ‘‘private data’’ that would be collected under the programme – including recordings of ‘‘private workplaces, private living spaces (decks and processing areas on vessels are both working and living environments for extended time periods) and will contain information on valuable and sensitive private intellectual property’’.

Forest and Bird said: ‘‘Although much of the letter was framed in terms of protecting privacy and commercial sensitivity, the Official Information Act already protects privacy and commercial sensitivity and has done since 1982, something the Ombudsman’s Office confirmed to the ministry in a briefing paper released at the same time.’’

Fisheries management director Stuart Anderson said: ‘‘Industry has proposed changes to how fisheries data should be released.

‘‘Those proposals are being considered alongside other options including maintaining the status quo. No decision has been made yet,’’ Anderson said. ‘‘There are many elements to consider carefully in balancing the responsibilities of transparency and public interest while protecting privacy and other sensitive information.’’

The fisheries industry is pleased implementation has been delayed as the new Government investigates further.

Chief executive of Fisheries Inshore NZ Dr Jeremy Helson said a lack of detail from the former government about the monitoring and reporting system had frustrated the sector.

It wanted assurances that private and sensitive information would be protected.

However, they still wanted detailed information to be available only to the ministry.