GIVE THEM BACK TO US

Whether the New Zealand public’s fishing rights are less well-defined than the rights of the commercial fishing industry is, I think, debatable.

Legasea would certainly argue that non-commercial (public) fishing rights for shared fisheries are very well-defined under the Fisheries Act, which states non-commercial fishers shall “be allowed for” before the commercial catch is allowed by the Minister.

In a shared fishery, it is entirely possible under the Fisheries Act that an MPI minister could legally allocate the allowable catch to firstly, Maori customary, and then ‘Other Mortality’, with the balance going to recreational fishers. The outcome of the Kahawai Legal Challenge, mounted a few years ago by a coalition of recreational fishing groups, showed that this was possible.

Many rec. fishing advocates also make the point that fishing companies access wild fish for free. They were given the quota (access to the fishery) for nothing but can sell it on as property.

The public pays for the management of fish stocks through taxes, but MPI manages the fishery largely for the benefit of fishing companies, which pay levies to part-fund MPI’S fisheries management.

Fishing companies not only profit from a public resource, but recreational fishers also blame them for seriously depleting many fish stocks.

Another option for managing inshore fisheries currently shared with commercial fishing companies is to give them back to us, the New Zealand public. That’s what Northland Regional Councillor Mike Finlayson thinks, commenting recently on the New Zealand Initiative’s report for an article in the Northland Age.

He places the blame for diminishing fish stocks squarely at the feet of the fishing industry.

“Trying to imply that it is your average Joe who goes out to catch a feed for the family who is to blame is beyond ridiculous. It was Piggy Muldoon’s enthusiasm for ‘thinking big’ on everything that wrecked our inshore fisheries. Down at the Onehunga wharf there were dozens of fishing boats called San this, that and the other, that thrashed our coast and collapsed the fisheries,” he said.

Finlayson reckons our right to catch a decent feed has been stolen by our own government and given away to private interests. Those interests thrash the fisheries to death and then want to blame recreational fishers and make them get a licence and pay for it.

To mitigate pressure on our inshore fisheries, give them back to us, he says. Finlayson wants the first 8km of coastal waters reserved for public use (commercial fishers can have the remaining 313km out to the territorial limit). He would ban trawling inside the inshore fishery zone (he doesn’t say whether he’s would ban commercial fishing altogether).

“Drawing an 8km line around our coast means that every harbour in Northland would belong to the people, every island would have a sanctuary around it. Locals could get together and decide how to manage ‘their’ fishery,” he says.