Calls for a complete ban on bottom trawling is continuing, while commercial fishers are asking not to be misunderstood.
Forest & Bird is calling on “everyone who cares about the Hauraki Gulf Tīkapa Moana” to tell the Government that no bottom trawling in the marine park is acceptable.
It comes after the Minister of Oceans and Fisheries announced the start of consultation on proposals to allow continued bottom trawling and Danish seining in parts of the Gulf.
The proposals by the Ministry of Primary Industries could see bottom trawling continuing in four significant areas off the Coromandel Peninsula and Great Barrier Island, as well as parts of the inner Hauraki Gulf and in the sea offshore from Goat Island to Mangawhai Heads.
All the proposals would see continued Danish seining in the inner Hauraki Gulf.
“The fact that all four proposed options include bottom-trawling and Danish seining is unfathomable,” says Bianca Ranson, Forest & Bird’s Hauraki Gulf Coordinator.
She says there needs to be a fifth option in the consultation, an option zero – “100% no bottom trawling, which the public, NGOs, iwi, and scientists want.”
“Bottom trawling, scallop dredging and Danish seining in the Gulf must end,” says Ranson.
Forest & Bird believes it’s important for the public to have access to information about which areas are currently being trawled. This will enable them to compare these areas with the protection proposals presented during the consultation.
The organisation wants to avoid a situation similar to the one in 2006, where most of the protected areas were not being fished or were already too deep to be affected by bottom trawling.
“Trawling through a marine park is like taking a bulldozer to land in a national park,” Ranson says.
“Large, weighted nets and doors scrape across the seafloor to scoop up anything in its path, leaving damaged, scarce habitats unable to support abundant life. It is an incredibly destructive, industrial fishing method and has no place in the Gulf.
“The Hauraki Gulf was declared a taonga when the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park Act was passed in 2000. Now it is time for the Government to show the public it truly values Tīkapa Moana as a taonga by stopping all destructive fishing practices and allowing Aotearoa, New Zealand’s only marine park, to recover.”
The Hauraki Gulf Alliance. which includes Forest & Bird, Greenpeace, Legasea, WWF-Aotearoa, NZ Underwater Association and NZ Sport Fishing, earlier this year delivered a 36,000-strong petition to MPs outside Parliament calling for decision-makers to act and ban bottom trawling, scallop dredging, and Danish seining from within the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park.
The Alliance represents tens of thousands of New Zealanders who want urgent action to protect the Gulf’s biodiversity and safeguard the future of its marine species. On Monday, the Alliance wrote to the Oceans and Fisheries Minister seeking the option of no bottom trawling to be added to the Government’s proposed consultation.
“Decades of overfishing and poor land management causing sedimentation and benthic damage have worsened the state of the Hauraki Gulf,” says Ranson.
“We can already see the collapse of scallop and mussel beds and the functional extinction of many species. Caulerpa is in several locations throughout the Gulf, and banning bottom trawling to limit further spread should be taken as a precaution.
“We are in a climate and biodiversity crisis and should be doing everything we can to revitalise the mauri and life-sustaining capacity of Tīkapa Moana and its treasure trove of marine life before it declines further into ecological collapse,” she says.
“It’s not too late for us to take the necessary action.”
Industry body Seafood New Zealand has reacted to the announcement, saying it wants a stronger focus on the health of the Gulf generally. However, it warns that the consultation process risks being ineffective if people do not understand how these fishing methods really work.
Dr Jeremy Helson, CEO of Seafood New Zealand, says some commercial methods are misunderstood and their effects mischaracterised.
“We as an industry take some responsibility for that lack of understanding, but we’re trying to help explain and educate people about how commercial fishing works and how different types of fishing work,” he says.
“We need the science to come through and be listened to. For our part, commercial fishers want and need a healthy Hauraki Gulf, and we are stepping up to play our role in that.”
Bottom trawling is a fishing method used to catch more than 70% of New Zealand’s commercially caught fish. Most trawling is done over sandy, muddy surfaces in well-established fishing grounds.
Helson says fishers in the Hauraki Gulf are already limiting their fishing to grounds where they have fished for many years. “We manage to work within the considerable restrictions already in place on commercial fishing to provide fish for Aucklanders and beyond.
“We’re keen adopters of new technologies, and that’s why our fishing methods keep improving. We want that trend to continue through the Fisheries Industry Transformation Plan.
“Anyone submitting to the Hauraki Gulf consultation should know that fishers are as focused on a healthy Gulf as any other stakeholder,” he says.
“They care deeply about the environment in which they work. To improve the health of this precious part of Aotearoa, we must face the tough stuff – the impact of climate change, run-off from the land, risk from invasive pest species and the sheer volume of use by a growing population that the Gulf experiences.
“Commercial fishing can’t do all the heavy lifting on this work. It needs to involve everyone who cares about our big blue backyard.”
Helson says moving the fishing effort outside the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park means more fuel use and increased costs, which means fish could become less accessible to New Zealanders.
“It could have other unintended consequences that don’t help achieve a healthier Gulf.
“We have worked faithfully for many years with the Government and other partners in the mission to protect the Hauraki Gulf, and we will continue to do so,” he says.
“We ask that access to fish for New Zealanders and respect for the science be considered by everyone contemplating submitting as part of the Government’s consultation process.”