The Tuhua Trust Board, which owns the island, has applied to the Ministry of Fisheries to ring the island with a mataitai reserve in which all forms of commercial fishing would be banned. Commercial fishing is already strictly prohibited within a marine reserve at the island’s northern end but only commercial set net or long line fishing is banned elsewhere.
Board chairwoman Magdalene Williams in her application to the ministry wrote that a mataitai reserve was the most suitable of a number of measures looked at to effectively manage Tuhua’s fisheries. She also states that the area proposed encompasses a number of traditional fishing grounds that are still of special significance to the iwi and hapu for the customary gathering of kaimoana.
While the board’s application was still subject to consultation and not yet approved by the Minister, Ms Williams and two other representatives were nominated as guardians to manage the reserve which would given her the power to recommend to the minister bylaws which could restrict or ban recreational fishing. Tauranga fisherman and Top Catch owner Roly Bagshaw thought an all-out commercial fishing ban around the island was a good idea, as long as the restrictions were not eventually extended to recreational fishing.
