In the middle of this year Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton announced a package of regional bans and restrictions on set-netting, trawling and drift-netting in order to protect New Zealand’s threatened hector’s and maui’s dolphins. The restrictions will continue in October also so the fishermen of the region feasr losing their jobs.
The Nelson-based Challenger Fin-fisheries Management Company, along with the Federation of Commercial Fishermen and a number of fishery management companies throughout the country, have applied to the High Court, seeking a judicial review of the decision and an interim order delaying the introduction of some of the measures. According to challenger chief executive Carol Scott if the ban and restrictions went ahead, it would have a devastating effect on the livelihoods of fishermen. She told that it means the fishermen are basically out of business from the 1st of October.
It is told that the ban will prohibit commercial and recreational set-net fishing within four nautical miles along much of the New Zealand coast. Scott also informed that the quota will just drop because if you can’t fish it, you can’t sell it, you can’t trade it. She also told that the fishermen can’t do something and their whole family relies on it, and you’ve invested so much money, it’s a big ask.
It is clear that the industry groups are seeking the interim court order to allow commercial fishing to continue while they further discuss aspects of the ban. The Picton-based owner of Ngamahau Fishing, Lawrence Gledhill, said he had spoken with eight other fishermen with more than 300 years’ combined experience catching butterfish. None of them had ever caught a dolphin.
Anderton told that the government would strongly defend the bans, as the industry risked being seen by its customers around the world as driving an iconic species of dolphin to extinction.
