Nelson’s seafood stars honoured at awards

Nelson featured among the winners at the 2017 Seafood Stars Awards, presented at the industry’s annual conference in Wellington last week.

Nelson’s Cawthron Institute won the Future Development Award in recognition of its 17 years at the forefront of marine science, while Sealord resource manager Graham ‘Patch’ Patchell was one of four recipients of a Longstanding Service Award for his many years of making a substantial difference to the seafood industry.

Chief executive of Seafood New Zealand Tim Pankhurst said award recipients ‘‘played a significant part in the world-leading, cutting edge technology that is making a real difference to the way commercial fishing targets what it needs and is lessening its environmental footprint.’’

Pankhurst gave specific praise to the Cawthron Institute’s work in the detection of paralytic shell- fish toxins, which can cause human illness.

The method developed by Cawthron detected toxicity faster and generated greater certainty in results. It is currently undergoing international validation.

In presenting Patchell’s award, Seafood NZ executive chairman Craig Ellison said his work had ‘‘made a significant difference in informing science-based management decisions which have seen our fisheries evolve and improve.’’

He particularly acknowledged Patchell’s ‘‘ground-breaking’’ collaboration with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) to develop the acoustic optical system, used most recently in orange roughy surveys on the West Coast and Hawke’s Bay.

‘‘This innovative piece of equipment was key in enabling three of our orange roughy fisheries to gain Marine Stewardship Council certification.’’

‘‘[They] have garnered him respect from those throughout the industry.’’