A United Nations report has ranked New Zealand’s fisheries among the most sustainable on the planet, crediting decades of management and the pioneering quota system introduced in 1986.
“The report compared fisheries around the world and found the region including New Zealand’s waters have the second highest levels of sustainable stocks in the world,” said Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones.
New Zealand is part of the Southwest Pacific region, which includes parts of the Australian coast, and was found to have approximately 85.5 percent of fish stocks sustainably fished.
“New Zealand has a reputation around the world for high quality, sustainable kaimoana and, as this report shows, the reputation is richly deserved,” Mr Jones said.
The findings come from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations’ Review of the State of World Marine Fishery Resources report, which monitors global fishery health.
Mr Jones said the results were a validation of New Zealand’s quota management system, which sets annual catch limits for commercial species and is credited with restoring depleted stocks over the past four decades.
“It is the result of generations of effort since the introduction of our quota management system in 1986. Fishers, scientists, kaitiaki, volunteers and regulators all work hard to keep our fisheries sustainable,” he said.
“While these results are incredibly positive, I believe that our fishery management system can be even better, which is why I have proposed changes to the Fisheries Act.”
While the stock health figures are globally impressive, some conservationists say the broader picture is more complicated.
Less than one percent of New Zealand’s waters are classified as fully protected, and successive governments have been criticised for abandoning plans to create a massive sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands.
“Less than one percent of our country’s oceans are highly protected and the damaging practice of bottom-trawling needs to be restricted,” WWF New Zealand CEO Kayla Kingdon-Bebb told The Guardian, while speaking to the new research.
In the same piece, Greenpeace warned that endangered shark species continue to be caught by longliners north of New Zealand, and said the country’s leadership on fish stock sustainability needs to extend to greater marine protections.
