On October 1 the Government imposed a four-year ban on blue cod fishing in the Marlborough Sounds. Danny Boulton, who has operated an acccommodation, adventure tourism and boat charter business at French Pass for nearly 20 years, argues that a much broader approach is needed to protect the marine environment.
'Balance' urged on fisheries
It's not just about blue cod. It is dis-heartening but understandable to witness the collapse of our fishery.
Having dived the Marlborough Sounds for 36 years, I am privileged to have enjoyed the best of it. Sadly, we have watched as number and size of all fish have decreased and distribution has reduced, putting our marine environment out of balance.
The Ministry of Fisheries makes decisions on single species. This is called the quota management system. Like today's financial advisers, they unfortunately have tunnel vision and do not have a wide enough view to see the coming meltdown. This is reflected in the appalling attempt over the past years to stop the slide of the blue cod fishery.
I have watched year by year as regulations and restrictions have been set. Still the fishery continues to slide. Why? Because we refuse to embrace ecosystem-based management.
Ecosystem-based management takes all species and the marine environment into consideration. Reduce the number of snapper, and kina take over. Kina then eat away the forests of kelp that are habitat for other species. Introduced, invasive organisms can then very easily take hold on these sea urchin barrens, blocking our native species and putting the environment out of balance.
Trawling, dredging, fishing and aquaculture can all have a negative effect on the marine environment by destroying spawning habitat and indiscriminate overfishing. Catching larger fish also depletes the gene pool by taking out the best breeding stock.
Today, more than ever, we need a new vision for our fisheries that will benefit all users, commercial and recreational. The answers are there - fisheries can be rebooted relatively quickly. Fisheries bounced back when pressure was off the resource during the war and there are many other examples. The conservation organisation WWF has many papers on its website showing fish recovery with an ecosystem-based approach.
If we go back in history and look at the number and mass of blue cod around D'Urville Island, we get a glimpse of what has been lost. People say we need more research - we don't. Talk to old fishermen and look back in history - examples are plain to see. Even Captain Cook's accounts of fish around D'Urville show an unimaginable abundance.
Policy makers suffer from "sliding baseline syndrome". This is where they cannot imagine the original mass of fish from the past and base their management decisions on what they have remembered in their lifetime. The story of the Foveaux Strait oyster fishery collapse is a good example.
In the Unnatural History of the Sea, Professor Callum Roberts takes us back to the time of pirates and the first exploitation of the sea. His book brings a dramatic insight into the unsuccessful management of the marine environment; it explains and helps us to understand our present-day predicament. He outlines with clarity present-day fishing and the inevitable consequences, but also shows a way forward.
No one likes to lose the position they are in, be it commercial or amateur. However, nothing is surer than this loss if an ecosystem approach is not taken. The future of fisheries depends on it.
As he explains in his book, it makes economic sense for commercial fishermen to catch their quota in less than half the time they do today with added energy savings. However, it requires an open mind from our policy makers and a shift from the present system. We can have a return to abundance if we turn present practice on its head by increasing protection.
At present, marine reserves, protected from all fishing, cover a tiny fraction of the sea, while marine-protected areas in general cover just 0.6 percent of the area of the world's oceans. Most governments now accept that we need to increase protection, but the majority still see marine reserves as the pinnacle of protection to be applied to only 5 percent or 10 percent of the sea, with lesser amounts of protection given to the rest. Emerging scientific understanding of human impacts on the oceans suggests we flip this management paradigm around. According to this view, marine reserves must become the base, and extensive, covering between 20 percent and 40 percent of the sea, in order to sustain ecological processes and services - like fisheries - that are vital to humanity, Roberts says.
Information Source (THE NELSON MAIL Saturday, October 11, 2008 - Page 10)
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