Quota owners are collecting all the rent while the people on the water are merely fishing an Annual Catch Entitlement (ACE) to pay the owner's rent. Using low-cost, bulk harvesting destructive fishing techniques that destroy the seabed and decimate our fish stocks.
Now they want us, the public, to fork out for new trawlers when all we want is to get the existing trawl fleet out of our inshore waters. Fisheries New Zealand and Seafood NZ know that bottom trawling is not sustainable. They also know that we, the public, want trawling gone for our inshore waters, so if they think that we will fork out millions of taxpayer dollars for a new fleet of vessels that will ravage our coastline, they are dreaming. Any transformation plan needs to provide for small-scale commercial fishing with a light footprint. Our fisheries team is still working through the plan to understand the details.
You find out more and read the plan here.
Protecting our seabirds |