An Alliance Between Anglers And Commercials?

[Leon Roskilly]

http://www.anglersnet.co.uk/ubb/ultimatebb...=2;t=005977;p=2

 

"An ITQ system sets a total allowable catch (TAC) for each fish stock for each year.

 

Regulators generally try to set TAC equal to the maximum sustainable yield (MSY) level.

 

Some of this may be allocated to recreational

and/or indigenous fishers so that the total allowable commercial catch (TACC) is somewhat lower.

 

Once the TACC has been set, the total catch needs to be allocated among the potential commercial fishers."

 

 

http://www.fao.org/fi/fcp/en/NZL/profile.htm

 

The Quota Management System (QMS) is the primary management mechanism. By late 2005 nearly 60 of the most significant species will be introduced to the QMS. These species represent around 95% of the total commercial harvest. The QMS also establishes tacit output limits for recreational and customary Maori catch based on the amount of quota available between the Total Allowable Catch (TAC) and the TACC noted above – there are no formal allocations made for non-commercial purposes.

 

(I read this as the Total Allowabale Catch is reduced by the expected Maori and Recreational take and what is left is used to input to the QMS for commercial fishing)

 

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/10/10/34430857.pdf

 

16. Each QMS stock has a TACC. The Minister of Fisheries sets the TACC for a particular fishing

year, after first making allowance for recreational, Maori customary fishing and all other sources of fishing.

 

http://srdis.ciesin.columbia.edu/cases/new...ealand-001.html

 

"At the heart of the QMS are two types of catch limits - the total allowable catch (TAC) and the total allowable commercial catch (TACC). A TACC must be set for all stocks within the QMS. This sets the portion of the TAC which can be taken by the commercial sector. From the TAC the Minister quantifies the TACC for a particular fishing year, making allowance for recreational and Maori customary non-commercial fishing interests and all other typesources of fishing."

 

 

(There's some interesting stuff on the NZ fishery at http://www.fao.org/fi/fcp/en/NZL/body.htm )

 

 

So, in Summary

 

First they work out what can be taken.

 

From that they take away what is likely to be taken by the moari and recreational fishers.

 

what is left is available for commercial fishermen who then have to purchase a quota which allows them to exploit a commonly owned resource.

 

Tight Lines - leon

[Guest jay_con]

Ahh Binatone. The guy you mention is the guy I thought was you. I guess you fish with him??? I Know of him, although I know his brother better. I was talking about him only yesterday in the tackle shop and the lad in there did comment on what a remarkable angler he is. Someone else I spoke to lately said what an inspirational guy he is - Which is what made me think it wasnt you afterall . Perhaps you could take a few lessons from him !!! . Having never fished with him I couldnt really comment myself, but like I said I can hold me own with the best of them.

So if you know Andrew you must also know the guy in the tackle shop with the mustache.

[Leon Roskilly]

This Interview with Doug Kidd, a former NZ Fisheries Minister, goes some way to explaining why NZ fisheries are in such a good state.

(It sounded better than it reads)

 

 

Transcript of interview between Helen Styles of ‘Dirty Tackle’ and Doug Kidd, Fisheries Minister of New Zealand 1992-1998.

 

Broadcast on BBC Radio 5 May 2001.

 

Nick Fisher speaking: Doug Kidd was Fisheries Minister in New Zealand in the 1990s at a time when their natural sea resources looked set to totally collapse.

 

In the light of our government’s green paper on fisheries policy a discussion document that will help to decide our future as regards sea fish stock, Helen Styles went to see if there were any lessons Doug had learned which could help save our seas.

 

Doug Kidd: By 1990 our quota management system, as we call it, had been in force for four years for some species.

 

Admittedly most of the main commercial species, but by no means all.

 

In the first four years of operation it had already become clear that they were not going to deliver truly biologically sustainable fisheries at a very high standard and I set to work to redevelop this quota management system - even though it was only a young system - to remedy the deficiencies and mistakes.

 

By 1996,when I finally implemented the new Fisheries Law, we had put in place a world leading standard for fisheries management in terms of true biological sustainability and we are now updating the position for the fisheries that were hidden from 1986 and bringing in the remainder of the species against these new elevated tests.

 

HelenStyles: What are the main species and what was their commercial value in the market?

 

We have half a dozen species which essentially were 80 or 90 percent of the economic value of our fisheries.

 

At one end you have the great orange roughy fishery, which sort of made New Zealand fisheries famous, which does not exist in depths shallower than a thousand metres down and we had to invent the techniques for such deep water trawling.

 

We made mistakes in the assessment of that because we were dealing with fish that we think live for a hundred-and-twenty-five years, but of course we haven’t known it for a hundred-and-twenty-five years have we?

 

It doesn’t sexually mature until probably it is twenty years old.

 

Frankly we overfished them.

 

At the other end was a much faster growing species - snapper - which is mature within three to five years, depending on how warm the waters are, and that had been heavily fished because it is close inshore.

 

Every New Zealander has caught a snapper and most of them have caught too many - including the commercial fishermen - and the quota level which was set when it was brought into the quota management system was too high and then we had to grind it back down.

 

Resetting the biological perimeters was part of the big legal rewrite that I did so whereas our original model of 1986 was interesting, revolutionary indeed, (it had serious flaws), our 1996 model, is likely to be the best model for securing the future of fish stocks anywhere on offer in the world.

 

Helen Styles: So what is that formula?

 

It’s a very tough one but put in simple terms it comes down to this: the fish stocks come first, the people second.

 

That’s a pretty tough call because I am sure when you cut your quotas back in 1996 there must have been an awful lot of pretty fed up commercial fishermen saying “you’re taking away our livelihood”.

 

They were, but when you said to audiences of angry fishermen “how can you be successful in a business sense if the fish stock is collapsing and surely the unmistakable reality here is healthy fish stocks lead to healthy and happy and happy fishermen”, those angry audiences would nod, they knew we were talking sense.

 

Now, the transit from the wicked old ways to the new.

 

The pain was eased with compensation to get people out and so on, but essentially we’ve got a system where science determines the amount that can come out of the sea, allocated as percentages of the take and those percentages are what are called individual transferable quotas and the fishers hold those, and they are freely tradable and act like a share, but only amongst New Zealanders of course - we don’t allow foreigners to own our quota rights - and we have complex systems to count it all and the industry has to pay for those.

 

It’s a fully user paying industry.

 

Now, when you were sorting your quotas out for your fisheries, did your recreational anglers have any voice in the decisions that were being made and what was happening with your fisheries obviously inshore like the snapper fishery?

 

Yes they did, but like all fishers they think they should have had more.

 

Parallel with the changes in commercial management, of course you had to include the recreational element and in our situation uniquely we have had to include the Maori customary fishery, and their indigenous peoples rights, but the recreational catch and the Maori customary catch as a non commercial take is set in the law in the sense that the Minister is charged each year - before fixing the commercial catch the Minister must allow for the non commercial take, and as I say you can have so many snapper and so many of this and that per day.

 

Some people, particularly over the summer when as far as our surveys tell us nearly a million out of our four million people going catching fish in the sea, and I think next to gardening it is the most commonly pursued recreational activity in New Zealand, go fishing, and of course it is free.

 

And anybody in the bureaucracy who foolishly occasionally bringing these ideas up, suggesting licensed fees and all that, they get massacred.

 

It is described as a birthright thing in New Zealand, a right to go and catch a fish in the sea.

 

You’ve got to look out for the recreational fishers and make sure they get what we call a ‘fair go’ (now that’s a real Kiwi thing isn’t it?).

 

What advice would you give to UK anglers now who are fighting for their opportunity to have a go at their fish?

 

Get organised.

 

Simple arithmetic impresses Ministers.

 

They are called votes you see, and if people come along who can credibly claim to represent a large number of people, it is amazing how much attention Ministers will give them.

 

I can’t see why our relatives (as it were) our cousins in the UK can’t have what we have.

 

The reason we got it is because we made it a priority.

 

So it’s fish first.

 

Fish absolutely first because we will never satisfy recreationals or commercials and one of the things I used to say which would sort of break the tension at meetings, I’d say “look I’ve got a simple job as Minister of Fisheries, I’ve got to make sure the fish have a successful sex life and they have to be able to live long enough to have sex and breed”.

 

If that doesn’t happen then nobody is going to get a fish, so I would consider myself the Minister for fish sex and that used to make them all laugh!

 

 

TL - leon

 

[ 30. September 2005, 07:33 PM: Message edited by: Leon Roskilly ]

[Guest johnfranz]

@AUTUMN@:

Ahh Binatone. The guy you mention is the guy I thought was you. I guess you fish with him??? I Know of him, although I know his brother better. I was talking about him only yesterday in the tackle shop and the lad in there did comment on what a remarkable angler he is. Someone else I spoke to lately said what an inspirational guy he is - Which is what made me think it wasnt you afterall               .  Perhaps you could take a few lessons from him !!!        . Having never fished with him I couldnt really comment myself, but like I said I can hold me own with the best of them.

So if you know Andrew you must also know the guy in the tackle shop with the mustache.

No I am not Andrew, no I don’t know the man with a tash that works in a tackle shop. I have been fishing with Andrew before. Don’t know which brother you mean as he has three.

He sent me a photo a few weeks ago of two twenty pound plus fish that he caught in twenty foot of water (well within casting distance for you Rockies). Like I said he cannot get to the places that you go so he uses a boat. But usually fishes where you fish if you know what I mean.

I spoke to him a few days ago. He had been out, (on his own) hauled his ten crab pots and then had a fish with his rod and managed to get himself a couple of stone of cod fillets for the table.

You should go round and see him autumn; in fact I am sure he would be delighted to take you off for a few hours fishing with him. It’s an experience I can assure you that. have a talk to him about the problems and frustrations you seam to have with your hobby.

Tell him about all the disadvantages that you have to put up with now that the commercials have made it more difficult for you to catch your fish. I am sure he will take one look at you and sympathise.

Ask him if he’s ever been out got wet through caught bugger all come home and thought is it all worth it.

I am not surprised that you heard remarks about him like you said you did in the tackle shop.

You see autumn he is a good person first, and it’s that what makes him a good angler.

[wurzel]

amongst New Zealanders of course - we don’t allow foreigners to own our quota rights -

 

Too bloody late Leon.

[Guest jay_con]

Wont be foreigners soon. When we are a united states of europe you will have to consider them as fellow country men.

[wurzel]

Wee wee mon sewer mercy buckets!

[Jaffa]

An obvious question but one i have failed to find the stats on; Who does own what quota? How much is owned by working fishermen, how much by banks, "carpet slipper" skippers, fishselling companies etc? Anyone know where I could find a straightforward listing about this?

[wurzel]

Hello Jaffa,

I'm not sure about that.

The main problem for us is the original share out by the EU. Things have changed in 20 years less cod but an abundance of dover sole, but the Dutch and Belgiums hold most of the quota due to historic rights of catching soles, It seems the only way we are to get more soles is for the others to give us some and that is not likely.

Last year through some deal or other our government did aquire more quota from the EU(election year), the SW fleet got a 50% increase and we got 10% but some how DEFRA managed to work it so as Im now on less quota than ever, it is now way below what is needed,

[Jaffa]

At a guess, Id imagine other countries hold most of the quota for the species that will now flourish given the changing water conditions?