Regular correspondent Daryl Sykes highlights some of the issues that might have been drafted into the current Fisheries Reform proposals but which appear to have missed the cut.
Points to Ponder
There is an age-old fisheries management adage – ‘we cannot manage what we do not know’. The gaps of knowledge in relation to inshore shared fisheries are disturbingly still evident nearly four decades after the implementation of the Quota Management System (QMS). In an effort to provoke some serious thought and conversation this article traverses some of the challenges to managing fishing that are yet to be fully met. We could build on that conversation and improve the quality and certainty of fisheries access and utilization opportunities. Or we can just bump along as we have been doing.
Information Issues
There are currently no mandatory or even disciplined recreational catch and effort reporting requirements. “We cannot manage what we do not know”. As a consequence there remains a lack of reliable estimates of total recreational removals from key shared stocks.
There is a lack of information about the extent to which fishing is important for food security across the wider New Zealand community. And we have no agreed methodologies for comparing the value of commercial and non-commercial catch.
As a nation we undervalue the contribution that commercial fishing makes to the wider community e.g. many people who never fish themselves depend on the commercial sector for the fish and derive value from that healthy and sustainable food source.
There is a lack of reliable information on nature of recreational catch (seasonal participation rates, where people fish, relative fishing success of individuals, biological parameters of recreational catches etc.).
The charter fishing industry fleet takes a significant amount of fish in some shared fisheries but this is treated as if it falls under the recreational sector – chartering would be better dealt with as a separate sector. The charter fishing industry has expanded over the past two decades with a trend towards larger boats and moving further offshore. There has been unreliable and/or inconsistent information on catch from the recreational charter fishing industry. That can be improved.
Routinely there is criticism of the poor information on estimates of illegal fishing – fish thieving is the enemy of all legitimate extractive sectors. The commercial sector is directly subsidizing allowances made for illegal unreported removals when TACs are announced. The commercial sector is also levied for a portion Ministry Compliance operating costs.
Dividing the pie that is the total allowable catch (TAC)
There was no statutory guidance on allocation of TAC between sectors at the time of introduction of species into the QMS in 1986 and 1990 and there is none currently.
Ministerial discretion in setting allowances and allocations within TACs leads to high levels of uncertainty, resulting in a poor investment climate for shared stocks; political lobbying; a poor environment for collaborative fisheries management; weakened incentives for voluntary and cooperative sustainability measures; thereby negatively affecting the integrity of the QMS
Reallocation across to the non-commercial and illegal components of a TAC undermines the economic incentives of the QMS that might otherwise be taken up by commercial rights holders. There is no statutory compensation when shares of TAC are reallocated between sectors (tradeoffs are not transparent and are fiscally invisible).
Bag it, Tag it, Report?
Bag limits are ineffective as a constraint on overall aggregate recreational removals. That situation is further compounded by the lack of accountability in recreational sector catch reporting.
There has and continues to be a lack of political and agency willingness to use management measures that are able to constrain recreational catch within allowances – e.g., licensing, tokens, tagging. Such systems are well established in several Australian States and the benefits to the sector and to fish stocks are evident.
It was a political decision that customary removals will not be constrained for reasons other than to address sustainability issues (i.e., allowances and catches are uncapped), but there remains an inadequate understanding about the split between fishing undertaken by Maori under the customary and/or recreational banners. This routinely leads to confusion and misunderstandings as to the nature of customary rights.
Manage fisheries or manage fishing?
There are limited tools in the Fisheries Act for managing localised depletion at a sub-QMA level (e.g., in 2005 TAC reductions were proposed to deal with local access problems for fisheries in northern harbours). In 2025 a large tract of the Hauraki Gulf was closed to lobster fishing not for a stock management purpose but allegedly in support of an expected ecosystem restoration.
There is a decided lack of integration between the Fisheries Act and Resource Management Act. The Motiti closures have impacted recreational and commercial fishing and diving. Similar RMA interventions are being considered for the Coromandel and Northland. These too will impact on all extractive users.
Spatial allocation issues
There are compounding impacts of spatial exclusions – for example marine reserves result in effort displacement, enhanced inter-sector tensions, and can confound intended sustainability outcomes. The recent Hauraki Gulf marine protection closure to lobster fishing will require marked changes in patterns of recreational and commercial lobster fishing. The network of marine reserves still being debated in Otago is contentious because of the inevitable displacement outcomes.
There is no compensation for loss of commercial access to fishing grounds as a result of spatial allocation to other sectors or to marine protection uses and there are inconsistencies in statutory tests (and the interpretation of tests) about restrictions on spatial access.
There are increasing commercial concerns about incremental loss of access to fishing grounds from a broad range of restrictions (conservation lobbyists, other fishing sectors, mining and gas, biodiversity protection, aquaculture, etc.). There is a corresponding and seemingly poor integration of spatial restrictions into stock assessments which inform TAC decisions (effort displacements and interruption to historical patterns of use etc.). The Hauraki Gulf closure to lobster fishing materially changes the size and extent of the CRA 2 fishery, so how will that impact on the time series of ‘fishery’ data that underpins the regular stock assessments?
Increasingly there are unrealistic expectations of small-scale spatial measures as management tools to provide for improved customary and/or recreational fishing success (particularly for stocks where abundance needs to be managed on a larger scale – CRA 3 example).
However, the level of inter-sector conflicts is very often exaggerated. Self-appointed representative sector groups leverage conflict in order to justify regular attacks on the efficacy of the QMS. Their well-publicized perception often distorts the Ministry’s analysis of possible solutions to shared fisheries issues.
Perceptions of conflict are often driven by deliberate misinformation, a lack of adequate information or the failure to properly understand the complexities of stock assessment models and their influence on TAC setting – spatial separation will never be a solution to perceived fishing sector conflicts if the main problem is lack of fish. Good science should underpin good management decisions – not ill-informed opinions or outright rumour and speculation.
Transaction Costs
Huge transaction costs arise from lack of information and the absence of clear shared fisheries policies. There is an unnecessary waste of time and resources by all sectors, including MPI, by way of requirements for continual consultations and through legal challenges to Ministerial decisions. There is no provision under the Fisheries Act for administrative appeals to TAC and management decisions – judicial review is the only recourse for disaffected parties.
The rock lobster industry considers that recreational fishing is a ‘club good’ rather than a public good and, as such, the Crown should not be intervening to make allocation decisions between recreational and commercial fishing. Instead, the appropriate role for the Crown is to create a legislative framework in which the parties (i.e., quota share owners, ACE owners and properly mandated recreational fishing representatives) have the incentives and tools available to negotiate and implement enduring solutions themselves.
Perhaps the next catalogue of fisheries reforms will explore and enable the full potential of the rights-based fisheries management regime that is the QMS. Commercial and recreational fishing interests have far more in common than many realize – both sectors need secure access and utilization opportunities. Those are being progressively eroded.
