The collapse of the West Coast hoki fishery revealed today by the fishing industry demonstrates why we need an independent inquiry into New Zealand\u2019s failing fisheries management system, says Greenpeace.<\/p>\n
Fishing companies today revealed that they were struggling to catch fish in the West Coast hoki fishery. As a result, they have agreed to temporarily give up 22% of their existing quota, and will stop fishing in spawning grounds.<\/p>\n
Greenpeace Executive Director, Dr Russel Norman, says \u201crampant overfishing\u201d in New Zealand\u2019s most valuable fishery could only have helped drive the collapse.<\/p>\n
\u201cHistory tells us that left to their own devices, the fishing industry will overfish and collapse fisheries – just look at what happened with orange roughy,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
In May this year, Greenpeace released secret internal Ministry of Primary Industry reports that showed that the fishing industry was systematically taking far more fish from the hoki fishery than they were publicly disclosing. The fishing industry denied the evidence and pointed to the supposed health of the hoki fishery as evidence of their good management.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe leaked MPI reports showed that fishing companies working in the hoki fishery were systematically dumping smaller fish, targeting spawning grounds, under-reporting the weight of cartons of fish, under-reporting the weight of whole fish caught for processing into fillets, mislabelling cartons of hoki as other kinds of fish, and much more. We\u2019re talking about rampant overfishing,\u201d Norman says.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf MPI had enforced the law back in 2012 and prosecuted these companies, the hoki fishery might not have collapsed. Instead, MPI has been captured by the industry, leading to this devastating result.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe industry is blaming rising sea temperatures for the lack of fish. While that may well be a factor, it will have been made much worse by systematic overfishing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe urgently need an independent inquiry into the fisheries management system, and we need the Government to have the courage to confront the industry.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is also a significant black mark for the Marine Stewardship Council. Nine days ago they recertified the hoki fishery as \u2018sustainable\u2019 – and today we find out it has collapsed.\u201d<\/p>\n
ENDS<\/p>\n
Contact:
\nDr Russel Norman, Greenpeace NZ Executive director: 027 458 5181<\/p>\n
The collapse of the West Coast hoki fishery revealed today by the fishing industry demonstrates why we need an independent inquiry into New Zealand\u2019s failing fisheries management system, says Greenpeace.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2034,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_planet4_optimize_post_is_variant":false,"_planet4_optimize_experiment_name":"","_planet4_optimize_variant_name":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[25],"p4-page-type":[7],"class_list":["post-4320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-greenpeace","tag-oceans","p4-page-type-press-release"],"yoast_head":"\n