 |
History of fishing
in New Zealand
Preview
From the time the first Polynesians reached New Zealand around
one thousand years ago, this country's heritage has been bound
to the sea. It dominates our weather patterns and isolates
us from other countries.
The sea's
natural resources have always been important to New Zealanders,
and this applies more than ever today, when there is a growing
awareness of the place held by the sea and its resources in
Maori tradition.
Early
fishing
When Europeans settled New Zealand, fishing was already well
established and highly organised among Maori.
Pakeha
New Zealanders were not great fish eaters in the early days.
In 1914, for example, New Zealanders ate only 2 kg per person
per year. Today we eat more than 10 times that amount.
What
put them off their fish?
This
set net yielded a good catch of mullet and other species.
(Alexander Turnbull Library, Northwood Collection) |
 |
Protein
in the form of mutton and beef was widely available
and cheaper than fish. |
|
New Zealand had poor inland transport until well
into this century, making it hard to get a highly
perishable commodity like fish, fresh to market. |
|
Storage
was a problem - producing and storing enough ice
to keep fish fresh wasn't as easy as it is today.
The only alternatives were methods like salting
or drying |
|
Early
fishing methods
|
Throughout
the 19th century and early 20th century, New Zealand's
commercial fishing developed quite slowly. It was limited
to inshore fishing grounds and was localised and small
scale, using small boats, catching most fish by line
or set nets.
In
1900, trawling was introduced, and in 1923, Danish seining
(see Fact sheet, Fishing
Methods).
|
Island
Bay fishers hauling aboard Cook Strait groper. (Alexander
Turnbull Library, S.C. Smith Collection) |
However
even at that time, there were concerns about the effect of these
new fishing methods on fish stocks, and after pressure from
recreational fishers and commercial fishers some fishing areas
were closed to these new fishing methods.
Species
Last century, many of the fish species we value today, such
as gurnard, red cod and even rock lobster, were held in poor
regard. On the other hand, species like flounder, mullet and
blue cod were very popular.
|
Two
Gurnard
|
While
there are about 1000 known fish species in New Zealand
waters,only about 100 - 200 of these are caught commercially,
and, of these, only about 25 - 30 species are important.
The
popularity of the various species is changing. A few
years ago we were even more choosy about the fish we
caught.
|
For
example, in 1969, 81.4 percent of the fish landed were from
just 10 species. The top three species were snapper (34.8%),
tarakihi (11.0%) and trevally (10.0%) Today, the spread of species
is more even and slightly wider, and there are now 40 or so
major commercial finfish species including orange roughy and
hoki.
The
main changes in the last 20 or so years have centred around:
|
deepwater
species such as hoki, orange roughy and southern
blue whiting |
|
pelagic
(surface feeding) species like tuna, mackerels and
kahawai |
|
shellfish
like paua, rock lobster and squid; and aquaculture
(mussels, oysters and salmon) |
 |
|
|
 |
Rules
and regulations
From 1860 onwards, various regulations were put in place to
prevent overfishing. In 1908, the rules were consolidated into
a Fisheries Act. It stayed in force until 1983, although it
was changed many times along the way. Since that time there
have been a number of amendments - the most significant of which
were in 1986 to introduce the Quota Management System, and in
1996 when the new Fisheries Act was passed.
By and
large, fishing wasn't controlled in New Zealand until the
late 1930s, when industries, including fishing, became licensed.
The number of vessels was restricted to conserve fish stocks,
although at the time there was little scientific evidence
to justify this.
From
the late 1950s, foreign fishing boats started coming into
our waters (at that stage our territorial waters extended
just three miles offshore). Exports of rock lobsters to the
United States had begun, and this also showed something of
the potential for growth.
There
was pressure to free up access to fisheries, and in 1963 the
fishing industry was almost completely deregulated. Financial
incentives were brought in by the Government to encourage
investment.
Over
the next 15 years the industry grew, but too many boats were
chasing the same species. Companies were unwilling to invest
in "unknown" deepwater fisheries and mainly stuck
with the inshore fisheries they knew. By the late 1970s, many
fishers were
going out of business as their catch rates declined.
By this
time, foreign vessels were taking huge tonnages from the deeper
waters around New Zealand.
Quantity
of catch
| In
the last 20 years the quantity of fish caught in New Zealand
waters has jumped dramatically, for several underlying
reasons: |
|
From
the 1960s through to the late 1970s there was a rapid
increase in the level of foreign fishing activity in waters
around New Zealand.. This peaked just before the declaration
of the 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in 1978.
Catches fell away again sharply after the Government cut
back the level of foreign fishing, but picked up again
as New Zealand companies got involved |
|
In 1963, fishing was deregulated and new investment encouraged |
|
| The
Quota Management System was introduced in 1986.
Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs) were to be
allocated on the basis of catch history, so there
was something of a scramble among commercial fishers
immediately beforehand, to build up a sizable catch
history. This helped inflate catch figures for the
mid 1980s. Catch levels dropped away again once
ITQs were introduced. The introduction of the 1996
Act is not expected to cause any major change in
the quantity of fish caught. |
Total
NZ fish catch
for all species
1890-2000 |
|
|
|
International
conventions
New Zealand fisheries managers are required to take account
of several international conventions when developing fisheries
policies.
The major
convention is the United Nations Convention on the Law of
the Sea (UNCLOS). This convention enabled New Zealand to establish
an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of 200 nautical miles. Within
the EEZ, New Zealand is responsible for managing fisheries
on a sustainable basis.
Another
example is the international Biodiversity Convention which
New Zealand signed in 1992. This requires us to conserve the
diversity of biological systems and manage their use in a
sustainable way to avoid the loss of genetic material.
The
EEZ
In 1978 New Zealand declared its 200 nautical mile Exclusive
Economic Zone. This led to some control over foreign fishing.
Foreign vessels were licensed and given quota for the main
species.
| Since
then, direct foreign involvement in New Zealand fishing
has declined to almost nil as New Zealand companies have
moved into deepwater fisheries. However, many of the foreign
vessels remained, fishing under joint venture or charter
arrangements with New Zealand companies. |
 |
By the late
1970's some inshore fisheries were showing signs of stress,
and for this reason, no new rock lobster and scallop fishing
permits were issued from 1978, and in 1980 there was a moratorium
on issuing new licences for catching finfish.
In 1983
a new Fisheries Act was passed which allowed for the development
of Fisheries Management Plans, for better regional management
of fisheries. The Act also excluded part-time fishers from the
industry. Commercial fishers had to be earning more than $10,000
a year, or 80 percent of their income from fishing, to remain
licensed.In
the same year a Deepwater Enterprise Allocation system was introduced,
which allocated quota for some species for a limited period.
This was a forerunner to today's Quota Management System. (For
more on the Quota Management System see the Fact Sheet, How
we conserve our fisheries.)
Enforcing
the rules
|
Input
controls = controlling how fish are caught
Output controls = controlling how many fish are caught
|
Until
the 1980s, the emphasis was always on input controls, that
is, controlling the way fish were caught. For example, there
were rules on the number of boats that could fish, net size
and so on. However, this type of rule was not very good at
conserving fish stocks, because modern technology always found
a way to catch more fish within the existing rules, for example,
using bigger and more powerful boats.
For this
reason, a system controlling outputs - the quantity of fish
caught - was introduced.
The Quota Management System was fully introduced in 1986 through
a major amendment to the 1983 Act. This fully established
the concept of Total Allowable Catches and defined a process
for bringing species into this management system. In 1996
this was further refined a with new Fisheries
Act which has been introduced over several years. On 1 October
2001 the remaining parts of this Act were introduced.
The level
of enforcement of rules has been substantially increased. In
1914, the entire country was policed by only 20 fisheries wardens.
Today, the Ministry of Fisheries polices the Quota Management
System through about 100 enforcement officers, with a further
400 honorary fisheries officers assisting MFish in policing
the regulations covering recreational fishing.
Research
Little fisheries research was carried out around New Zealand
until the 1960s. As early as 1900 the Government of the day
commissioned trawl surveys around the coast to identify fishing
grounds and offshore banks. One such survey was carried out
by the Nora Niven, which could trawl as deep as 350 metres.
It eventually surveyed the entire coastline of both islands.
| Before
1965, most fisheries research concentrated on freshwater
species, but since then the emphasis has changed. Marine
research was handled by the former Marine Department until
1972, when the Fisheries Division became part of the Ministry
of Agriculture and Fisheries. |
The
wooden hulled Ikatere, an early research vessel. Because
of its size it was restricted to inshore research. |
The Ministry's
ability to carry out research was hampered by the lack of suitable
research vessels, so in 1969 it bought the 500 tonne stern trawler,
James Cook. This boosted research capabilities, but could not
really explore the increasingly important deepwater fisheries,
so the Ministry depended largely on chartered trawl surveys
and joint venture research until 1991 when the state-of-the-art
research vessel, "Tangaroa", came into service.
RV Tangaroa a research
vessel. |
More
recently the Ministry's role has changed to one of contracting
out its research requirements. These encompass fisheries biological
research and also, research into environmental issues as they
relate to fisheries, for example, the impacts of fishing.
For more
on the Ministry of Fisheries' research programmes today, see
the Fact sheet, Marine Fisheries
Research.
For more
information click on any link below.
|
