A top fisheries scientist says New Zealand’s fish stocks are performing as well or better than any in the world and the public perception is wrong.
Addressing the Seafood New Zealand conference in Wellington, Ministry for Primary Industries principal fisheries science adviser Dr Pamela Mace said when she looked at fish stocks around the world, New Zealand was “the best success story of all”.
“New Zealand’s fisheries are performing extremely well overall, at least as good as or beyond the standards of the best in the world. I don’t think there’s any question about that,” Mace said.
She said of the 300-plus stocks, 83 per cent were above or well above the level where sustainability issues might be a concern, and that figure represented 96 per cent of landed fish.
The overall status had been steadily improving since 2008 and before, “but it does now appear to be plateauing”.
Although the situation was “not actually perfect”, New Zealand was a good example of improved sustainability and excellent current status, Mace said.
“We need to align people’s perceptions of fishing in New Zealand and the world with reality.”
There was fishing overcapacity in many if not all international waters, with depleted stocks including bluefin and bigeye tuna, some sharks, jack mackerel and a number of high seas orange roughy stocks, she said.
“Even so I believe the severity of the global situation has been over-exaggerated.”
Reports from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation showed there hadn’t been much change in overfishing among the world’s 200 major stocks since 2010 and all were getting close to being “fully fished or unfortunately, overfished”.
“But the doom and gloom scenario certainly doesn’t reflect the situation in many developed countries. The United States in particular is doing extremely well improving the status of its stocks.”
EU countries were also making substantial progress after a long history of over-exploitation.
New Zealand’s situation was something to be proud of, Mace said.
She said in some of the highlights, hoki stocks had been improving for eight consecutive years and were stabilising above their management target. Of four orange roughy stocks assessed last year, three had increased and were within or near the target management range.
Rock lobster and red gurnard were “generally performing well’ and elephant fish stocks had substantially rebuilt.
“In all cases where stocks are below the soft or hard [catch] limits, measures have been put in place to rebuild the stocks.”
One way to work on the “perception problem” would be to carry out more science on fish stocks, Mace said. Fisheries science funding had fallen to about 45 per cent of the level in the early 1990s while the number of stocks within the quota management system had more than trebled.
At the same time, the funding was now spread across research on recreational fisheries, effects of fishing on aquatic environments, biodiversity and international fisheries.
“It’s a much smaller budget in real terms, and it has to stretch a lot further.”
A way to add value and enhance New Zealand’s domestic and international reputation was to work creatively with the fisheries science community on cost-effective ways of increasing the number of stocks of known status and further enhancing management measures.
“I think we can get a lot of mileage out of that. It would help with any further certification projects and it will enable greater market access and price premiums,” Mace said.
There was a particular lack of knowledge about inshore finfish stocks, she said.
2015 Fairfax New Zealand Limited